Кра?на стр?мко летить у пр?рву: моторошна криза охоплю? вс? царини людського життя. Псевдовчен? наполегливо пропагують: мислення – це ?люз?я, пошук будь-якого сенсу – абсурд, ? зрештою уряд оголошу? моратор?й на розум. Талано- вит? п?дпри?мц? безсл?дно зникають, кидаючи сво? виробництво напризволяще або знищуючи його. Головн? геро? роману – Да?н? Та??арт ? Генк Р?арден – в?дчайдушно намагаються в?двернути катастрофу. Да?н? переконана, що в кра?н? з’явився та?м- ничий Руйн?вник, ц?ль якого – крах економ?ки ? тотальна деградац?я людей. Ж?нка не покида? над?? в?дтворити досконалий двигун, але перспективний молодий нау- ковець, який погодився допомогти ?й, в?дмовля?ться працювати на благо нев?глас?в. Да?н? не хоче в?дмовлятися в?д свого задуму, тож ?де на зустр?ч з? знев?реним до- сл?дником, а в дороз? знайомиться з волоцюгою. Свого часу в?н працював там, де й зародилося ?чисте зло?, яке зараз пожира? кра?ну… Друга частина роману м?стить блискуч? св?тоглядн? монологи, вкладен? в уста Франциско Д’Анкон?? та Генка Р?ардена.

In 1888 a client, Mary Morstan, comes with two puzzles for Holmes. The first is the disappearance of her father Captain Arthur Morstan in December 1878 and the second is that she has received 6 pearls in the mail from an anonymous benefactor once a year since 1882, since she answered an anonymous newspaper query inquiring for her. With the last pearl she has received a letter remarking that she has been a wronged woman and asks for meeting. Holmes takes the case and soon discovers that Major Sholto — Morstan's only friend who had denied seeing Morstan — had died in 1882 and that within a short span of time Mary began to receive the pearls, implying a connection. The only clue Mary can give Holmes is a map of a fortress with the names of Jonathan Small and three Sikhs, who are named Dost Akbar, Abdullah Khan, and Mahomet Singh. Holmes, Watson, and Mary meet Thaddeus Sholto, the son of the late Major Sholto and Capt Morstan's Army friend who has sent her the pearls. Thaddeus remarks that his father had a paranoid fear of one-legged men and confirms that Mary's father had seen the Major the night he died. That night, in a quarrel about an Agra Treasure, Morstan — who was in weak health — suffered a heart attack. Not wanting to bring attention to the object of the quarrel to public notice, Sholto disposed of the body and hid the treasure. However his own health became worse when he received a letter from India. Dying, he called his two sons and confessed to Morstan's death and was about to divulge the location of the treasure when he suddenly cried "Keep him out!". The puzzled sons glimpsed a face in the window but the only trace was a single footstep in the dirt. On their father's body is a note reading "The Sign of Four". Both brothers quarreled over whether a legacy should be left to Mary Morstan and Thaddeus left his brother Bartholomew, taking a chaplet and sending its pearls to Mary. The reason he sent the letter is that Bartholomew has found the treasure and possibly Thaddeus and Mary might confront him for a division of it. Bartholomew is found dead in his home from a poison dart and the treasure is missing. While the police wrongly take Thaddeus in as a suspect Holmes deduces that there are two persons involved in the murder: a one-legged man, Jonathan Small, as well as another "small" accomplice. He traces them to a boat landing where Small has hired a launch named the Aurora. With the help of his Baker Street Irregulars and his own disguise Holmes traces the launch. In a Police launch Holmes and Watson chase the Aurora and capture it but in the process end up killing the "small" companion after he attempts to kill Holmes with a poisoned dart shot from a blow-pipe. Small tries to escape but is captured. However the iron treasure box is empty; Small claims to have dumped the treasure over the side during the chase.

The book's protagonist is an English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey in Victorian England, and identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension, and his demonstration of a tabletop model machine for travelling through it. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator.In the new narrative, the Time Traveller tests his device with a journey that takes him to A.D. 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, doing no work and having a frugivorous diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline, and he speculates that they are a peaceful communist society, the result of humanity conquering nature with technology, and subsequently evolving to adapt to an environment in which strength and intellect are no longer advantageous to survival. Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller is shocked to find his time machine missing, and eventually works out that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx. Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. Within their dwellings he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutish light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers. The Time Traveller theorizes that intelligence is the result of and response to danger; with no real challenges facing the Eloi, they have lost the spirit, intelligence, and physical fitness of humanity at its peak. Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her plight, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure that turns out to be the remains of a museum, where he finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he fears he must fight to get back his machine. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. Because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they stop in the forest, and they are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, and Weena faints. The Traveller escapes only when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena is presumably lost in the fire, as are the Morlocks. The Morlocks use the time machine as bait to ensnare the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth, menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches chasing butterflies in a world covered in simple lichenous vegetation. He continues to make short jumps through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow larger, redder, and dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out.

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) is a novel by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). The themes and settings of Through the Looking-Glass make it a kind of mirror image of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm month of May (4 May), uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, wintry night exactly six months later, on 4 November (the day before Guy Fawkes Night), uses frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of chess. In it, there are many mirror themes, including opposites, time running backwards, and so on. Short Summary: Alice is playing with a white kitten (whom she calls "Snowdrop") and a black kitten (whom she calls "Kitty")—the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland—when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection. Climbing up on the fireplace mantel, she pokes at the wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she is able to step through it to an alternative world. In this reflected version of her own house, she finds a book with looking-glass poetry, "Jabberwocky", whose reversed printing she can read only by holding it up to the mirror. She also observes that the chess pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up. Upon leaving the house (where it had been a cold, snowy night), she enters a sunny spring garden where the flowers have the power of human speech; they perceive Alice as being a "flower that can move about." Elsewhere in the garden, Alice meets the Red Queen, who is now human-sized, and who impresses Alice with her ability to run at breathtaking speeds. This is a reference to the chess rule that queens are able to move any number of vacant squares at once, in any direction, which makes them the most "agile" of pieces. The Red Queen reveals to Alice that the entire countryside is laid out in squares, like a gigantic chessboard, and offers to make Alice a queen if she can move all the way to the eighth rank/row in a chess match. This is a reference to the chess rule of Promotion. Alice is placed in the second rank as one of the White Queen's pawns, and begins her journey across the chessboard by boarding a train that literally jumps over the third row and directly into the fourth rank, thus acting on the rule that pawns can advance two spaces on their first move.

In “True Ghost Stories,” Mr. Carrington presents a number of startling cases of this character; but they are not the ordinary “ghost stories”—based on pure fiction, and having no foundation in reality. Here we have a well-arranged collection of incidents, all thoroughly investigated and vouched for, and the testimony obtained first-hand and corroborated by others. The chapter on “Haunted Houses” is particularly striking. The first chapter deals with the interesting question, “What is a Ghost?” and attempts to answer this question in the light of the latest scientific theories which have been advanced to explain these supernatural happenings and visitants. It is a book of absorbing interest, and cannot fail to grip and hold the attention of every reader—no matter whether he be a student of these questions, or one merely in search of hair-raising anecdotes and stories. He will find them here a-plenty! The following little book endeavors to bring together a number of “ghost stories” of the more startling and dramatic type,—but stories, nevertheless, which seem to be well authenticated; and which have been obtained, in most instances, at first hand, from the original witnesses; and often contain corroborative testimony from others who also experienced the ghostly phenomena. Some of these incidents, indeed, rise to the dignity of scientific evidence; others are less well authenticated cases,—but interesting for all that. These have been grouped in various Chapters, according to their evidential value. Chapters II. and III. contain well-evidenced cases, some of which have been taken from the Proceedings and Journals of the Society for Psychical Research (S. P. R.), or from Phantasms of the Living, or from other scientific books, in which narratives of this character receive serious consideration. Chapter V., on the contrary, contains a number of incidents which,—striking and dramatic as they are,—cannot be included in the two earlier Chapters, as presenting real evidence of Ghosts; but are published rather as startling and interesting ghost stories. Chapter IV., devoted to “Haunted Houses,” contains brief accounts of the most famous Haunted Houses, and of the phenomena which have been witnessed within them. Appendix A gives a list of a few of the important “Historical Ghosts,” Appendix B describes the “Phantom Armies” lately seen by the Allied troops in France—while Appendix C lists a number of books of Ghost Stories which the interested reader may care to peruse. A short Glossary, at the beginning of the book, explains the meaning of certain terms used,—which are not, perhaps, ordinarily met with in books of this character. In the Introductory Chapter, I have endeavored to explain, very briefly, the nature and character of Ghosts; what they are; and the various scientific theories which have been brought forward, of late years, to explain Ghosts. I hope that this may prove of interest to the reader; in case it does not do so, he is invited to “skip” directly to Chapter II., which begins our account of “True Ghost Stories.” I wish to express my thanks in this place to the Council of the English S. P. R. for special permission to quote and to summarize several striking cases here reproduced; also to Miss Estelle Stead, for permission to utilize several cases previously printed at length in Mr. Wm. T. Stead’s collections of Ghost Stories. H. C. [Author]

Alexandra Lansing is looking forward to a vacation from her job as an operative with the Commonwealth’s counterterrorist task force.? She has three blissful weeks off, and plans to spend the entire time in France. After all, everyone needs a break from stress and worry. But when she’s snatched from the Left Bank in Paris she isn’t sure if her kidnapping is a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or a direct plot against the task force. When she discovers Praed has also been abducted, the vacation is officially over, and the possibility of an informer at task force headquarters becomes a very real, very frightening possibility. The pair manages to escape, and flees to Praed’s family home where they are forced to defend his brother’s wife and children from armed terrorists determined to recapture the operatives. With no clue as to who is behind the plot, or even a motive to explain why someone wants to take Praed and Alex prisoner, and the identity of the informant at HQ is a complete mystery. While Henry Davison races to eliminate suspects at headquarters, Praed offers himself as bait to draw out the kidnappers, hoping to discover the mastermind behind the plot. ? Alex is in hot pursuit, but will she be able to reach him before his captors extract the information they want and execute him?

Koragi is a promising young seamstress who longs to open her own tailoring shop in her home village of Cordak. Like most young girls in the village, she has an eye for Tebanis, the handsome militia captain with a crooked smile and a fierce sword arm. Hooded thugs attack Koragi during the annual harvest festival in the capital city of Eiskre. Tebanis mysteriously takes the form of a black dog to track and rescue her. He takes her away from the city on horseback, but they arrive in Cordak to find the village devastated. A massive golden dragon lies dead in the smoldering ruins. Tebanis reveals that Koragi is born of the gods, and she must cast aside her simple life to seek out three Pearls of Power in order to awaken the full capacity of her birthright. As she grieves the loss of her worldly mother and the deaths of countless villagers, Koragi is compelled to travel with Tebanis to Raitom, the City of Swords, in a desperate search for the strength to take retribution. Alongside Tebanis, Koragi battles agents of the dark goddess Ariana as she embarks on a quest to find her Pearls and gather allies and power enough to stand against the wicked goddess who plagues Camriiole. Facing treachery and the agony of loss, can Koragi overcome her own fears and pain to complete the impossible task which prophecy has placed before her?

One terrorist, six hostages, a single bombing…?nothing out of the ordinary for task force operatives Alexandra Lansing and Mark Praed. With one exception; this request comes from the High Council on Kyree. An appeal from Kyree for task force help is peculiar enough for a planet where non-violence is practiced by all its citizens, but the Council is very specific in their choice of task force personnel: Mark Praed. Praed is baffled by the request. This is the same planet where his birth to a well born Kyreen female caused a galactic scandal, forcing his human father to flee Kyree with his half-human infant. The operatives travel to Kyree and meet with the High Council’s leader, Dame Ruthanon. Her orders are clear: the hostages are to be released and the terrorist captured, all without the use of violence. Alex and Praed are soon caught up in something more devious than the straight-forward capture of a terrorist. Nothing is as it appears, and what should have been a simple operation turns into a tangled mess of falsehoods, secret associations and hidden agendas.

You should never fall in love with a flyer. You should only be in love with flight. ? That’s the rule that Roxy Loewen – aviatrix, and protégé of the great Amelia Earhart – always lives by. Until she falls hard for fellow pilot Jocco Zomack and he leads her into a whole heap of trouble. From African skies to a cellar in Madrid, from the Berlin Olympics to the last flight of the Hindenburg, from gun running to the heist of the century, Roxy is just one step ahead of the Nazis – and one loop-de-loop from disaster. ? “A barrel-rolling barn-burner of a book! Roxy's got a tender heart with a steel jacket, and the skill and courage to bring her in on a wing and a prayer.?A good thing, because this girl doesn't pack a parachute." —Diana Gabaldon

Plays for Today by Women A wide-ranging collection of plays by women dealing with contemporary subjects such as sexual abuse, recession, war, poverty and the complexity of modern women’s lives. Many roles for women and girls provided. Suitable for study or for performance or as part of courses in Women’s Studies or Feminist Theatre Studies. All the plays have been produced and performed in the UK to acclaim and are written by commissioned playwrights. ? “The expanse of subjects this short collection covers shows that women are not just writing about the kitchen sink, the claim so often levelled. This collection (provides) a snapshot of an exciting time for female writers” ? @17percent ? The Plays For A Button ?by Rachel Barnett: comic two hander about two friends and the lengths one will go to, to remain best friends. Yours Abundantly, From Zimbabwe ?by Gillian Plowman: a middle-aged woman decides to leave her comfy life in the UK and work in a school in Zimbabwe. Welcome To Ramallah ?by Sonja Linden and Adah Kay: two Jewish sisters are forced to confront the reality of what their forefathers have done to the Palestinians. From The Mouths Of Mothers ?by Amanda Stuart Fisher: a verbatim drama detailing the distressing stories of mothers who learned that their child has been abused. The Awkward Squad ?by Karen Young: a three-generational drama involving Northern women who are trying to live and work in recessionary Britain. Sweet Cider ?by Emteaz Hussain: In a rundown park, two teenage runaways Tazeem and Nosheen hang out, chatting to the boys and an old bag lady, trying to reconcile being British with their Pakistani cultural traditions. ? About the editors Cheryl Robson ?is an award-winning playwright and publisher who founded Aurora Metro Books over 20 years ago to develop and publish new writers in drama and fiction. She also established The Virginia Prize for Fiction in 2009 to promote emerging women novelists. Previously, she worked for the BBC, ran a theatre company and taught in higher education. Rebecca Gillieron ?is an editor and musician with various releases on independent labels in the US and UK. Keen to raise the profile of women and the arts, she has worked in publishing for fifteen years moving from Virgin and Penguin Books into independent publishing via The Womens Press, Marion Boyars and now Aurora Metro Books.? ? ? ?

Will one man change everything Caroline's ever thought about love? Caroline Lowther’s in a long-term open relationship with her boyfriend of nearly four years, Nathan MacMillan. For the past six months, Nathan’s had another girlfriend, Rissa, while Caroline has yet to find anyone else who interests her in a romantic way. That is until Benedict Grant, a local business man in an open-relationship of his own, approaches her at her favorite cafe and makes his own attraction clear. What follows is a whirlwind romance where two hearts fall fast for one another, secrets kept become desires revealed, and the shocking murder of someone close to Caroline leaves her world shattered and her heart broken. Picking up the pieces, Caroline must learn that life has immeasurable merit, love is worth holding on to even if it’s different from what she’s always thought, and every single moment leads her right where she needs to go.

When Mandy’s car is stolen with her two young daughters inside, the police think it’s a car-jacking gone wrong, but she can’t forget the determined look in the man’s eyes as he drove away. Mandy and her husband, Nick, are on the verge of divorce and the kidnapping is a wake-up call. All of their differences and problems can’t stand in the way of a parent’s love. In order to find their children, they’ll have to forgive each other and learn to work together. But they don’t have years or even months to make this happen . . . according to the kidnapper, time is running out.? The first novella in the Silver Cascade Suspense series, Silver Cascade Secrets, is available when you sign up for Rachelle's VIP news. If you're interested, copy and paste this link into your browser http://rachellechristensen.com/free-book/

Cook delicious meals quickly! With Air Fryer You have ?more possibilities than ever to cook amazing healthy meals which everybody will love! Just download our new Air Fryer Cookbook. In? Air Fryer Cookbook , you'll get all the essentials you will need to cook great breakfast, lunch or dinner. Linda Croll has?tried more than 500 recipes and ?choose her favorite ?so now you don’t need to spend your time to find a new recipe, because best recipes are now in our Air Fryer Cookbook! You can use them every day or for special events because every recipe in ?this book is simple and healthy!

For once, Holly Scallanger has it all. After more than her fair share of ups and downs, fate intervened and changed her life the dayshe bumped back into Jake Peters’ life. Now her Now her future seems brighter than ever before.She’s training at the best hospital in Zurich, she shares a love with the man of her dreams—he type of love most women only ever dream of—and her little girl has everything her heart desires.But fate has other plans. When an old acquaintance crashes back into Holly’s life causing havoc at every turn, Holly’s perfect existence falls to pieces around her. Will the couple survive the turmoil entering the lives, or will their happily ever after come to an end?

Marriage to a man she barely knows. Exile to a country she doesn't know at all An emotional love story set in the last days of colonial India After an abusive relationship with a predatory older man, debutante Ginny Dunbar is publicly disgraced when her artist lover exhibits a nude painting of her in a smart London gallery. All her mother's hopes for a society wedding are dashed until she lowers her sights and pushes Ginny into a hasty marriage with a tea planter from South India. Colonial life doesn't sit well with Ginny. She finds the world of the expatriate community shallow and empty. Caught between fear of and fascination for India and its people, her world is shaken when she meets Jag Mistry, who opens her eyes and her heart. But just as she thinks she has found happiness, World War 2 intervenes. A poignant story of love, loss, betrayal and redemption set against the dying days of colonial India.

After Beth’s car accident, the truth came out about why she pushed Jacob out of her life and she realized she made a terrible mistake. Jacob declared his love, Beth agreed to date, but this relationship has to be on her terms.? Beth witnessed Jacob’s bad side first-hand while working for him and trust needs to be rebuilt. Add to that the pressure of paparazzi, and she’s understandably gun-shy.? Jacob told Beth he loves her, but her feelings are still a mystery. Building a relationship requires something he’s never been good at—patience. Can he give her the time she needs to see he has changed, or will he push too hard for those three little words and drive her away? Loved is the fourth and last book in the My Once and Future Love Revisited series exploring Beth and Jacob’s relationship with all its joys, flaws, and heartache.? Contemporary Romance saga. This story is intended for readers over the age of 18 due to adult language, sexual content, and adult situations.

In a dark and desolated After Earth, love still does exist, but the cost of bearing such a flaw is death. World War III has left Earth in utter turmoil. People’s beliefs are said to be the cause of the worldwide destruction. After The Clearing new laws are set about - to show certitude in anything besides the law is weak and chargeable as mutiny. To be illogical and have faith in religion is illegal, to be limitless is dangerous. And Illness is seen as a defect – all flaws that are inexcusable. But to love is the greatest betrayal of all man kind. It is a fault the world has long forgotten and punishable by death, a fatal risk Aecker and Opel are fully prepared to take - because in love there is freedom. But how far can they push back before it claims their lives and those they care about

"Excellent as usual. This series is one of the best I ever read and I read a lot!" - 5-star customer review. Deadly power. Stunning beauty. She will not be controlled. Sixteen-year-old Beth’s ordinary life is shattered the night her dormant magic awakens and she almost kills her boyfriend. Horrified at what she’s done, she flees into the fae realm to find the siren mother who disowned her a decade ago. When it turns out her power cannot be controlled, she is once again cast out from the siren community. Alone and afraid, Beth winds up in the Dark North where a group of witches rescues her. They offer to help her gain control of her deadly magic—but at what price? Scarlett is a companion story to the bestselling YA fantasy Creepy Hollow series. Grab your copy today to taste a darker side of this captivating magical world! While this story is best enjoyed in conjunction with the rest of the Creepy Hollow series, it is a standalone story that can be read on its own. (Optimal reading position in series: after book 1, The Faerie Guardian) Readers' reviews:? "A fabulous addition to the Creepy Hollow series." "I haven't read books this good in a really long time. Rachel, please always keep writing!"

这是一本帮助你用超级记忆法来提高学习效率和学习能力的书。 本书介绍的记忆方法与我在复旦大学教过朋友们的方法完全一样。当时别人问我怎么可能仅仅用考前一个晚上时间，记住了汉语课上数百个新单词，而且还记住了它们在课本里出现的位置。我可以轻松运用复杂的数学公式，终在考试中获得了高分。经过短暂的练习，他们也获得了这种一开始看来似乎不可能拥有的技能。我告诉他们，我并没有特异功能或者超凡天赋：轻松地记忆大量信息的能力关乎态度，而不是运气；技巧胜于天赋。如果这是一个技巧的问题，那么任何人都可以学习并使用它。 这本书里，你会学到比尔盖茨如何记住所有员工的车牌号，传教士利玛窦如何过目不忘背诵中国诗词。你们也会学会怎样快速学习英文和其他语言，学会快速记下复杂数学公式并熟练运用。 这本书里，你会遇到一些有趣的角色。从几十万年前生活在东亚的北京猿人到一位生活在泰国能每天读一本新书的美国人，从北京即兴戏剧的女演员到古希腊时期的诗人。这些角色中的每一个都呈现了我们的记忆如何工作以及如何有效地使用我们的记忆。 对中小学生、大学生，以及教育工作者和家长来说，它是一本简单易懂并寓教于乐的超级记忆法教科书。对有意提升自己学习能力和拓展思维方模式的年轻人来说，这也是一本既有实用价值又开阔眼界的自我进修读物。

回忆，有时候是一种苦涩中的甜蜜，明知道是回不去的过去； 但，还是会情不自禁慢慢地到那记忆深海里。 认识她的时间不是很久， 就只是那短短的数天…… 今天的她，却不再回应我了，这也发生在没多久之前，就在刚过去的一个星期前开始…..

Earth has become a library planet for thousands of years, a bastion of both useful and useless knowledge—esoterica of all types, history, science, politics—gathered by teams of “pack rats” who scour the galaxy for any scrap of information. Knowledge is power, knowledge is wealth, and knowledge can be a weapon. As powerful dictators come and go over the course of history, the cadre of dedicated librarians is sworn to obey the lawful government . . . and use their wits to protect the treasure trove of knowledge they have collected over the millennia.