Title: The Summer of Riley Author: Eve Bunting File Type: Mobi Subject:Dogs Description:From Publishers WeeklyBunting's straightforward story about an Oregon boy who learns to accept the loss of loved ones, including a dog, is heartwarming despite some heavy touches, said PW. Ages 8-12. (Apr.) br 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library JournalGrade 4-6-With the recent death of his grandfather and his parents' decision to separate, 11-year-old William struggles with his grief and anger until an abandoned Lab comes into his life. Boy and dog bond immediately, but then William takes him to visit a neighbor. Without warning, Riley breaks away and begins to chase Peachie's old racehorse, causing injury to him. When the dog runs over to her farm again, she calls the animal-control officers and they take Riley away. Determined to save his pet from a possible death sentence, William begins a publicity campaign to vie for the townspeople's sympathies. Riley is saved when a man offers to take him and train him to keep an airport runway clear of birds. Although William loses the dog he loves, he realizes that he has done his best and begins to accept the changes that are taking place in his life. The interactions among various characters are well developed. This is a thought-provoking story but the resolution, though believable, is not totally satisfying since it gets everyone off the hook without any real change taking place concerning the law or people's attitudes. It is disturbing how quickly everyone except William gives up on Riley. Everything is great when he appears to be the perfect dog, but one flaw and immediately he becomes a throwaway once again. Bunting has really captured the dilemma of our contemporary society, which wants simple solutions to complex situations, often demands perfection, and rejects anything less.br Carol Schene, Taunton Public Schools, MA br 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Title: Star Wars_ Jedi Apprentice 2_ The Dark Rival
Author: Jude Watson
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Science-Fiction:Star Wars
Description:Peace over Anger
Honor over Hate
Strength over Fear
Qui-Gon Jinn's past is not at rest. How can he forge a bond with young Obi-Wan Kenobi while he is haunted by the betrayal of his first apprentice—Xanatos? Xanatos was also a promising student—until the dark side of the Force intervened. Qui-Gon thought he was gone forever.
But now Xanatos is back.
And he wants revenge.
Title: Doctor Who_ The Invasion
Author: Ian Marter
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Science-Fiction:Doctor Who
Description:UFO sightings over southern England, a missile attack on the TARDIS, and mysterious deliveries to the world's largest computer firm foreshadow the Cybermen's invasion of Earth
Title: Dark Assassin
Author: Anne Perry
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Mystery:Historical
Description:
For countless readers, one of life’s great pleasures is the mesmerizing magic of a Victorian mystery by New York Times bestselling author Anne Perry. Her dramas of good and evil unfolding inside London’s lavish mansions and teeming slums hold us spellbound. Now, in Dark Assassin, she sweeps us into a darkly compelling world that we never dreamed existed.A Thames River Police superintendent struggling to win the respect of his men, William Monk is on a patrol boat near Waterloo Bridge when he notices a young couple standing at the bridge railing, apparently engaged in an intense discussion. The woman waves her arms and places her hands on the man’s shoulders. A caress or a push? The man grasps hold of her. To save her or to kill her? Seconds later, the pair plunge to their death in the icy waters. Monk can’t help but wonder, was it an accident, a suicide, or a murder? It seems impossible to determine the truth, but haunted by the woman’s somber beauty, he is impelled to try.Mary Havilland was her name, and she had planned to marry Toby Argyll, the fair-haired man who shared her fate. Mary’s father, an engineer employed by the Argyll Company, had recently died–a suicide, according to the police and Mary’s sister. But Mary’s friends tell Monk that she suspected her father had been murdered because of his stubborn insistence that the Argyll Company’s current project–the construction of a splendid new sewer system for the metropolis–was so badly flawed that it put the entire city in peril from flood and fire. Monk is now faced with the mysteries of the three deaths. Aided by his intrepid wife Hester, he starts looking for answers and is soon treading a slippery path that takes him from the luxurious drawing rooms where powerful men hatch their unscrupulous plots to a world beneath the city where poor folk fight starvation. In nightmarish tunnels, Monk and Hester find true friends, among them Scuff, a young mudlark Sutton the ratcatcher and Snoot, Sutton’s clever terrier. For once, even Monk’s old enemy, Superintendent Runcorn, is on his side. As rainfall strains the fragile manmade underground, Monk must connect the clues before death strikes again.With characters as vivid as Dickens’s, gripping courtroom scenes, breathless horrors beneath the earth, and a plot that twists and turns toward a stunning denouement, Dark Assassin is absolutely one of Anne Perry’s best.From the Hardcover edition.
Title: Star Wars_ The Force Unleashed
Author: Sean Williams
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Science-Fiction:Star Wars
Description:Along with the comic, it features the storyline of the game and the fate of Darth Vaders apprentice at the end of the book. Although the game has multiple endings, the book and comic follow the sole canonical ending. Along with the comic, the books release was timed around the release of the game.
There are differences between the novel and the game. For instance, during Starkillers mission to Imperialized Raxus Prime, the plot of the novel diverges from the plot of the video game, in that a giant computer, known only as The Core, gains control over PROXY, and uses PROXY to attack Starkiller, making PROXY assume the form of Darth Maul (although this plot point was included in the Nintendo DS version of the game). In the game, PROXY attacks Starkiller, sensing the best opportunity to fulfill his primary programming.
Title: Heart of Darkness
Author: Joseph Conrad
File Type: Mobi
Subject:classics
Description:
Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood's Magazine. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon.The story details an incident when Marlow, an Englishman, took a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Although Conrad does not specify the name of the river, at this time Congo Free State, the location of the large and important Congo River, was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver; however, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization in a cover up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region.This very symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts, from dusk through to late night, to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary, his Congolese adventure. The passage of time, and the darkening sky, during the fictitious narrative-within-the-narrative parallels the atmosphere of the overall story. (wikipedia)
Title: Strangled
Author: Brian McGrory
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fiction:Suspense
Description:From Publishers WeeklyNewspaper reporter Jack Flynn, last seen in McGrory's Dead Line (2004), investigates a series of contemporary murders that parallel the terrifying Boston Strangler slayings of the 1960s in the author's less than convincing fourth thriller. Somewhat improbably, Flynn must begin by probing the older case and the debate over whether the confessed strangler, Albert DeSalvo, was actually guilty. In the novel's reality, the senior Bay State senator isn't Ted Kennedy but a prosecutor who made his reputation on the DeSalvo case and who's among many in law enforcement discouraging Flynn from re-examining the official line that DeSalvo was the murderer. The sympathetic Flynn, with his train wreck of a private life, compensates for the author not probing more deeply serious questions about the real-life strangler case. Those seeking a rich, compelling look at the possible return of a serial killer would do better to turn to Peter Straub's Blue Rose and its sequels.br Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. FromStarred Review Has the Boston Strangler returned, reprising his murder spree of 40 years ago? That question plagues reporter Jack Flynn as he investigates the gruesome murder of a young woman that becomes just one in a series, with the killer mailing clues to Jack in the newsroom and at home. What if the man who was convicted of rape, suspected of being the strangler, and murdered in prison wasn't actually the strangler? The very possibility that the strangler may be on the loose threatens the future of the police commissioner, now on the verge of running for mayor, a man who made his career during the 1960s investigation of the murder cases. Working with colleague Vinny Mongillo and retired police detective Hank Sweeney, Flynn tracks down clues from Boston to Las Vegas, dodging attempts on his own life along the way. For Jack, the story provokes a crisis of trust in the police, the management of his beloved Boston Record, and a close friend. McGrory offers delicious descriptions of Boston's food, sights, and characters in this taut page-turner with enough suspense to make readers anxiously await the next installment. Vanessa Bushbr American Library Association. lt;
Title: Ghost Shadow
Author: Heather Graham
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Fiction:Suspense
Description:
There are those who walk among us who are no longer alive, but not yet crossed over. They seek retributionhellip;vengeancehellip;to warn. Among the living, few intuit their presence.Katie O'Hara is one who can.As she's drawn deeper and deeper into a gruesome years-old murder, whispered warnings from a spectral friend become more and more insistent. But Katiemustuncover the truth: could David Beckett really be guilty of his fiancee's murder?Worse-the body count's rising on the Island of Bones, andthe dead seem to be reenacting some macabre tableaux from history. The danger is increasing by the moment-especially as Katie finds herself irresistibly drawn to David, who may be responsible for more than just one killinghellip;.
Title: High Performance Web Sites
Author: Steve Souders
File Type: Mobi
Subject:Reference:Computers
Description:Want to speed up your web site? This book presents 14 specific rules that will cut 20% to 25% off response time when users request a page. Author Steve Souders, in his job as Chief Performance Yahoo!, collected these best practices while optimizing some of the most-visited pages on the Web. Even sites that had already been highly optimized were able to benefit from these surprisingly simple performance guidelines.