Thrown Upon The World

It is 1938 when the Kolbers, affluent Viennese Jews, flee their country for Shanghai after its annexation by the Nazis. Eva and her daughter take the Trans-Siberian Railroad through war zones where they must confront border guards and Japanese imprisonment. Meanwhile, her husband, Josef, and their twin sons travel by ocean liner, hiding valuables in crates. Similarly in China, the politically powerful Gan Chen family finds their lives upended by Japanese invaders. Forced to abandon their estate, the family seeks refuge in Shanghai. While the families adapt to their new lifestyles during the war, their children meet. Walter Kolber is a handsome violinist; Chao Chen is a gifted pianist. After a forbidden romance blossoms, Chao Chen discovers she is pregnant. Without familial blessings, the lovers marry in December 1946 and head with their newborn to a refugee camp in Austria. As Chao Chen grapples with language and cultural barriers, the family is met with turmoil and tragedy. Now only time will tell if they will survive their troubles to start a new life in the United States. A remarkable true story, Thrown upon the World tells the tale of two families brought together during World War II in Shanghai and the twist of fate that split them apart.

Lamarck outlined his theory of 'soft inheritance', which influenced Darwin, in this 1809 work, eventually translated into English in 1914.

Who would ever say no to the master story tellers when they have to offer their darkest tingling Christmas mysteries and horror tales as a holiday present: The Silver Hatchet (Arthur Conan Doyle) What the Shepherd Saw: A Tale of Four Moonlight Nights (Thomas Hardy) Markheim (Robert Louis Stevenson) The Wolves of Cernogratz (Saki) Mustapha (Sabine Baring-Gould) The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance (M.R. James) The Christmas Banquet (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Ghost's Touch (Fergus Hume) Glámr (Sabine Baring-Gould) The Ghosts at Grantley (Leonard Kip) A Terrible Christmas Eve (Lucie E. Jackson) Ghosts and Family Legends (Catherine Crowe) The Ghost: A Christmas Story (William Douglas O'Connor) Thurlow's Christmas Story (John Kendrick Bangs) The Mystery of My Grandmother's Hair Sofa (John Kendrick Bangs) The Abbot's Ghost; or Maurice Treherne's Temptation (Louisa M. Alcott) Old Applejoy's Ghost (Frank R. Stockton) Wolverden Tower (Grant Allen) The Christmas-Eve Vigil (James Bowker) Told After Supper (Jerome K. Jerome) The Box with the Iron Clamps (Florence Marryat) Joseph: A Story (Katherine Rickford) The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton (Charles Dickens) The Ghost of Christmas Eve (J. M. Barrie) The Dead Sexton (Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu) Uncle Cornelius His Story (George MacDonald) The Grave by the Handpost (Thomas Hardy) Number Ninety (Bithia Mary Croker) At Chrighton Abbey (Mary Elizabeth Braddon) The Haunted Man (Charles Dickens) Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions (Charles Dickens) The Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens) The Black Bag Left on a Door-Step (Catherine L. Pirkis) Between the Lights (E. F. Benson) Transition (Algernon Blackwood) The Kit-Bag (Algernon Blackwood)