Reader's Advisory Guide

For the first time ever, Tom Clancy's greatest characters come together in one electrifying thriller. For years, Jack Ryan, Jr., and his colleagues at the Campus have waged an unofficial and highly effective campaign against the terrorists who threaten Western civilization. The most dangerous of these is the Emir. This sadistic killer has masterminded the most vicious attacks on the West and has eluded capture by the world's law enforcement agencies. Now the Campus is on his trail. Joined by their latest recruits, John Clark and Ding Chavez, Jack Ryan, Jr., and his cousins, Dominick and Brian Caruso, are determined to catch the Emir, and they will bring him in . . . dead or alive.

Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all the Rings of Power – the means by which he intends to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks in his plans for dominion is the One Ring – the ring that rules them all – which has fallen into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.

One of the most popular novels in Jules Verne's Voyages Extraordinaires series, this book tracks the adventures of affluent Englishman Phileas Fogg, who attempts to swiftly span the globe with his hapless French valet, Passepartout. A case of mistaken identity leads a determined sleuth named Fix to purse Fogg on his trek, which consists primarily of boat and train travel. Published in 1873, the story depicts Fogg and Passepartout at odds with their unfamiliar surroundings while taking in various international wonders.

Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true?