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Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas is the second book by American writer Herman Melville, first published in London in 1847, and a sequel to his first South Sea narrative Typee, also based on the author's experiences in the South Pacific. After leaving the island of Nuku Hiva, the main character ships aboard a whaling vessel that makes its way to Tahiti, after which there is a mutiny and a third of the crew are imprisoned on Tahiti.

The protagonist Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, whose great hall, Heorot, is plagued by the monster Grendel. Beowulf kills Grendel with his bare hands, then kills Grendel's mother with a giant's sword that he found in her lair. Later in his life, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats, and finds his realm terrorized by a dragon, some of whose treasure had been stolen from his hoard in a burial mound.

Baron Trump's Marvelous Underground Journey by Ingersoll Lockwood was published in 1893. The novel recounts the adventures of the German boy Wilhelm Heinrich Sebastian von Troomp, who goes by the name "Baron Trump", and his dog Bulger, as they discover fantastic underground civilizations, offend the natives, escape from their involvements, and repeat this pattern until arriving back home at Castle Trump. The novel was part of a trend in American children's literature that responded to the demand for fantastic adventure stories created by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).

Despite the heavy clumsiness of her lines, the Aorai handled easily in the light breeze, and her captain ran her well in before he hove to just outside the suck of the surf. The atoll of Hikueru lay low on the water, a circle of pounded coral sand a hundred yards wide, twenty miles in circumference, and from three to five feet above high-water mark. On the bottom of the huge and glassy lagoon was much pearl shell, and from the deck of the schooner, across the slender ring of the atoll, the divers could be seen at work. But the lagoon had no entrance for even a trading schooner.

Mauki written by Jack London: He weighed one hundred and ten pounds. His hair was kinky and negroid, and he was black. He was peculiarly black. He was neither blue-black nor purple-black, but plum-black. His name was Mauki, and he was the son of a chief. He had three tambos. Tambo is Melanesian for taboo, and is first cousin to that Polynesian word.

Yah! Yah! Yah! written by Jack London: He was a whiskey-guzzling Scotchman, and he downed his whiskey neat, beginning with his first tot punctually at six in the morning, and thereafter repeating it at regular intervals throughout the day till bedtime, which was usually midnight. He slept but five hours out of the twenty-four, and for the remaining nineteen hours he was quietly and decently drunk. During the eight weeks I spent with him on Oolong Atoll, I never saw him draw a sober breath. In fact, his sleep was so short that he never had time to sober up.

The Seed of McCoy written by Jack London: The Pyrenees, her iron sides pressed low in the water by her cargo of wheat, rolled sluggishly, and made it easy for the man who was climbing aboard from out a tiny outrigger canoe. As his eyes came level with the rail, so that he could see inboard, it seemed to him that he saw a dim, almost indiscernible haze. It was more like an illusion, like a blurring film that had spread abruptly over his eyes.

The Heathen is a short story by Jack London. John Griffith "Jack" London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. He is best remembered as the author of The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life".

The Inevitable White Man written by Jack London: So said Captain Woodward. We sat in the parlor of Charley Roberts' pub in Apia, drinking long Abu Hameds compounded and shared with us by the aforesaid Charley Roberts, who claimed the recipe direct from Stevens, famous for having invented the Abu Hamed at a time when he was spurred on by Nile thirst—the Stevens who was responsible for "With Kitchener to Kartoun," and who passed out at the siege of Ladysmith.

South Sea Tales (1911) is a collection of short stories written by Jack London. Most stories are set in island communities, like those of Hawaii, or are set aboard a ship. Contents: The House of Mapuhi / The Whale Tooth / Mauki / "Yah! Yah! Yah!" / The Heathen / The Terrible Solomons / The Inevitable White Man / The Seed of McCoy

The Terrible Solomons written by Jack London: There is no gainsaying that the Solomons are a hard-bitten bunch of islands. On the other hand, there are worse places in the world. But to the new chum who has no constitutional understanding of men and life in the rough, the Solomons may indeed prove terrible.

It was in the early days in Fiji, when John Starhurst arose in the mission house at Rewa Village and announced his intention of carrying the gospel throughout all Viti Levu. Now Viti Levu means the "Great Land," it being the largest island in a group composed of many large islands, to say nothing of hundreds of small ones. Here and there on the coasts, living by most precarious tenure, was a sprinkling of missionaries, traders, beche-de-mer fishers, and whaleship deserters.

In Octopus Ocean, discover the mysteries and histories of octopuses big and small—their biology, habitat and habits—and explore the top threats to their future, including warming oceans, over-fishing and pollution.

Habits are inevitable. The human brain craves habits so that it does not have to work so hard and is not involved in constant decision making. The brain does not want to have to think about every step you need to back your car out of the driveway and companies do not want to reinvent the hiring process every time they hire someone new. That is why habits form, to make things easier. What distinguishes successful people from unsuccessful people is whether we choose to control habits or we let them control us.

Jabez Wilson, a pawnbroker, consults Holmes about a job, gained only because of his red hair, which took him away from his shop for long periods each day; the job for to simply copy the Encyclopædia Britannica. After eight weeks, he was suddenly informed that the job ended. After some investigation at Wilson's shop, Holmes contacts a police inspector and the manager of a nearby bank. With Watson, they hide in the bank vault and catch two thieves who had dug a tunnel from the shop while Wilson was at the decoy copying job.

De Profundis is a 50,000-word letter written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to Lord Alfred Douglas, his lover. Wilde wrote the letter between January and March 1897; he was not allowed to send it, but took it with him upon release. In it he repudiates Lord Alfred for what Wilde finally sees as his arrogance and vanity; he had not forgotten Douglas's remark, when he was ill, "When you are not on your pedestal you are not interesting."

"Animal Farm" is Orwell’s classic satire of the Russian Revolution - an account of the bold struggle, initiated by the animals, that transforms Mr. Jones’s Manor Farm into Animal Farm - a wholly democratic society built on the credo that All Animals Are Created Equal. But are they?

Ted, Christy, and Leo are teenagers out for the day at their local amusement park. It's now getting near the end of the day, and the lights of the arcade are bright and beckoning. At the arcade, the coming night makes all the lights seem brighter. But be careful, for if you use the dark token you will enter the DARK PARK and it could be game over!

A Dill Pickle is a 1917 short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in the New Age on 4 October 1917. A revised version later appeared in Bliss and Other Stories. The characters and their relationship possibly were inspired by Mansfield's older sister Vera Margaret Beauchamp and her husband James Mackintosh Bell. A man and a woman who used to be romantically involved meet by chance in a tea-house not having seen each other for about six years.

The Young Girl is a 1920 short story written by Katherine Mansfield. Mrs. Raddick’s and her beautiful daughter waited on the steps of the casino. The daughter was incredibly beautiful with flushed cheeks, blue eyes, and golden curls. She “might have just dropped from this radiant heaven” (79), and Mrs. Raddick seemed to think so too - if her appreciative glances were any indication. The girl; however, appeared only bored as if heaven had been full of casinos and they no longer held any interest for her.