Elena Rainn

Kyrsten Iris

Fede Bonino

_ eshago@uw.edu

Watashi Wa Jigabudesu

Roman Bryzhatiy

Karl Halmos-Westram

Ljsly Bernard

Ruby Brown

Dimitri Nuri

Tim M

George Balaskas

An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.

Twenty-Five Hundred years ago, Sun Tzu wrote this classic book of military strategy based on Chinese warfare and military thought. Since that time, all levels of military have used the teaching on Sun Tzu to warfare and civilization have adapted these teachings for use in politics, business and everyday life. The Art of War is a book which should be used to gain advantage of opponents in the boardroom and battlefield alike.

The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats includes all of the poems authorized by Yeats for inclusion in his standard canon. Breathtaking in range, it encompasses the entire arc of his career, from luminous reworking of ancient Irish myths and legends, to passionate meditations on the demands and rewards of youth and old age, from exquisite, occasionally whimsical songs of love, nature, and art to somber and angry poems of life in a nation torn by war and uprising. In observing the development of rich and recurring images and themes over the course of his body of work, we can trace the quest of this century's greatest poet to unite intellect and artistry in a single magnificent vision.Revised and corrected, this edition includes Yeat's own notes on his poetry, complemented by explanatory notes from esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran. The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats is the most comprehensive edition of one of the world's most beloved poets available in paperback.

The Winding Stair and Other Poems by W. B. Yeats contains a myriad of poems the manage to be both mired in their time and timeless. Yeats takes ordinary events in ordinary lives and writes about them in poems that touch people's hearts and minds even years after they were written. While one might not know the characters about whom he writes, the experiences feel all too real reminding the reader that there are certain experiences that transcend time, boundaries, and locale. With lines that demand the reader read them one, twice, thrice just to feel the entirety of their meaning, The Winding Stair and Other Poems often feels like it's pushing beyond the page and into the shared experience of being human even while searching for what that shared experience really means.

When I am sad and wearyWhen I think all hope has goneWhen I walk along High HolbornI think of you with nothing onThere are almost as many definitions and different sorts of love as there are poets. Edited on the assumption that any poem which speaks of one human’s desire for another is a qualifying factor, this rich and diverse anthology ranges through time and fashion to best represent ‘man’s changeless responses to the changeless changing seasons of his heart’.Wine comes in at the mouthAnd love comes in at the eye;That’s all we know for truthBefore we grow old and die.I lift the glass to my mouth,I look at you, and I sigh.Edited with an Introduction by Jon Stallworthy

When this little play was performed in London, some friends of W.B. Yeats discovered much detailed allegory, the Headman being one principle of social life, the Curdseller or the Gaffer another; but the meaning is less intellectual, more emotional and simple. On the stage the little plays shows that it is very perfectly constructed, and conveys to the right audience an emotion of gentleness and peace.

The first edition of W. B. Yeats's The Tower appeared in bookstores in London on Valentine's Day, 1928. His English publisher printed just 2,000 copies of this slender volume of twenty-one poems, priced at six shillings. The book was immediately embraced by book buyers and critics alike, and it quickly became a bestseller.  Subsequent versions of the volume made various changes throughout, but this Scribner facsimile edition reproduces exactly that seminal first edition as it reached its earliest audience in 1928, adding an introduction and notes by esteemed Yeats scholar Richard J. Finneran.  Written between 1912 and 1927, these poems ("Sailing to Byzantium," "Leda and the Swan," and "Among School Children" among them) are today considered some of the best and most famous in the entire Yeats canon. As Virginia Woolf declared in her unsigned review of this collection, "Mr. Yeats has never written more exactly and more passionately."

A strange, virtually unknown short novel. Basically this is like a ladies little black book – a chronicle, almost diary style diatribe of all the men that have come and gone in the protagonist’s life. It is very modern prose, witty but unfortunately lacks the sharpness or spunk of similar style writers, such as Muriel Spark, Stella Gibbons, Barbara Pym or Eelizabeth Thurkell. Clearly ahead of it’s time though! From the little I know of Parker, she was a bit of a trail blazer (and ball buster?) it seems! I assume some of her chunkier novels are, while similar in style, more in depth and would be worth reading. 

NOW AVAILABLE!Walt Whitman’s poem, which would eventually become “Song of Myself,” had no title in the 1855, first edition of Leaves of Grass. In the 1856 edition, it was “A Poem of Walt Whitman, an American.” In 1860, the title changed to “Walt Whitman.” It wasn’t until 1871 that Whitman changed the title to “Song of Myself.” Along with the changes in title were changes made over the course of time to the poem itself. Whitman’s “I” is a spectator, a commentator of what he sees, seeing them all, rich, poor, black, white, all religions, all races, all the good and the bad, revealing them all, and then moving on. In the early part of this poem, Whitman shows the reader how the physical self, the “I,” encompasses the universe and also is interchangeable with the universe. How every element in nature is in us, and when we have no further use of our bodies they return to the earth to once again be a part of the universe. We are all part of this cycle, and therefore equal. Grass, the ultimate symbol of democracy. There’s more, there’s so much more. But, for me, this time it was the predominant “take-away.” The commentary of the poem is broken down by section, with a Critical Commentary followed by an Afterword. These are both elucidating. The Commentary focusing on “translating” the section, and the Afterword occasionally sharing a life experience that sheds more light on the section. My grandfather figures predominantly in my love of poetry, and more specifically in the love of Whitman’s poetry. As a child, I sat beside him as he wrote his own poems, line by line, asking this much younger version of me what words I thought he should use. Including me in the process. When he wasn’t writing, or we weren’t polishing the pews or some such thing, he was reading poetry to me. In this case, I remember a lot of it discovered under his loving eye as he broke this down, line by line, first asking, and then helping me discover what this poem was about. For him, the equality of all men was the paramount message. My grandfather was poor, growing up in rural West Virginia in a house his father had lovingly built with his own hands. His parents had lived on his grandfather’s farm when they were first married, but moved to “town” in 1902 when Salem College was being built nearby, they wanted a college education for themselves and their children. I had started reading another book around the same time, Rick Bragg’s “All Over But the Shoutin,’” and then a day or so later, I began in small bits reading “The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks” by Jesmyn Ward. It made for an interesting combination, from the 1850s to now, words, ideas and ideals shared by Whitman. Bragg, echoing the same thoughts throughout his memoir. Ward, one of today’s authors, asking the same questions. Whitman’s celebration of the self includes everyone, regardless of race, morality, identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social standing. To paraphrase the last line of an old Peter, Paul &amp; Mary / Pete Seeger song: When will we ever learn? Pub Date: 15 October 2016Many thanks to University of Iowa Press (The Iowa Whitman Series), NetGalley, and to Ed Folsom and Christopher Merrill. 

Here, in its original and complete form, is the edition of the American masterpiece that inspired Emerson to write his famous words to Whitman: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career..."As Malcolm Cowley says in his Introduction, the first edition of Leaves of Grass "might be called the buried masterpiece of American writing," for it exhibits "Whitman at his best, Whitman at his freshest in vision and boldest in language, Whitman transformed by a new experience." Cowley has taken the first edition from its narrow circulation among scholars, faithfully edited it, added his own Introduction and Whitman's original Introduction (which never appeared in any other edition during Whitman's life), and returned it to the common readership for whom the great poet intended it."One of the most important literary events in twentieth-century poetry and criticism." -Karl Shapiro

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption. Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. His life was divided by political duties and poetry, the most of famous of which was inspired by his meeting with Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice,including La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy. He died in Ravenna in 1321.

"The Outsider" is a short story by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written between March and August 1921, it was first published in Weird Tales, April 1926. In this work, a mysterious man who has been living alone in a castle for as long as he can remember decides to break free in search of human contact. "The Outsider" is one of Lovecraft's most commonly reprinted works and is also one of the most popular stories ever to be published in Weird Tales.

"The Pit .. " is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. It centres around the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. You are sure to find it especially effective at inspiring fear in readers due to its heavy focus on the senses, thus emphasizing reality. It is different from many other Poe stories which are aided by the supernatural. It's considered one of his best.Librarian's note: this entry relates to the story "The Pit and the Pendulum." Collections of short stories by the author can be found elsewhere on Goodreads.

Dive into this classic from the singular mind of Edgar Allan Poe, who is widely regarded as the master of short horror fiction. "The Fall of the House of Usher" recounts the terrible events that befall the last remaining members of the once-illustrious Usher clan before it is -- quite literally -- rent asunder. With amazing economy, Poe plunges the reader into a state of deliciously agonizing suspense. It's a must-read for fans of the golden era of horror writing.

The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, has a masquerade ball within seven rooms of his abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure disguised as a Red Death victim enters and makes his way through each of the rooms.  The story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented, as well as attempts to identify the true nature of the titular disease.

In Gustave Doré, one of the most prolific and successful book illustrators of the late 19h century, Edgar Allan Poe's renowned poem The Raven found perhaps its most perfect artistic interpreter. Doré's dreamlike, otherworldly style, tinged with melancholy, seems ideally matched to the bleak despair of Poe's celebrated work, among the most popular American poems ever written.This volume reprints all 26 of Doré's detailed, masterly engravings from a rare 19th-century edition of the poem. Relevant lines from the poem are printed on facing pages and the complete text is also included. Admirers of Doré will find ample evidence here of his characteristic ability to capture the mood and meaning of a work of literature in striking imagery; lovers of The Raven will delight in seeing its mournful musing on love and loss given dramatic pictorial form.

Religion is a very personal matter and all too often a very controversial one at that. My ancestors practiced a variety of different faiths, but I was raised in the Catholic Church. I attended Catholic school from kindergarten through the 12th grade and, like many “reformed Catholics,” I swallowed what was fed me at first, without really questioning why it might be good for me or what it might do to me spiritually or psychologically. But with knowledge of the hard and social sciences and evident contradictions in the formal church, I strayed further and further from organized religion.I know I’ve not addressed Tolstoy’s work yet specifically, but I’m getting to it in a roundabout way, with an introduction to my review that is structurally very similar to the way that Tolstoy opens “A Confession” (the introductory lines of which I include later on). It is perhaps because of my own experiences with organized religion in my youth that I found the work so intriguing. And although I have since distanced myself from Catholicism as an organized religion, it is not something I can really escape from entirely. I can no more escape from Catholic guilt, which was instilled in me from my childhood into my early adult years, than I can from accepting the mathematical truth that 2 + 2 = 4, similar to points made by some of my favorite Catholics in the world of cinema, Federico Fellini, Martin Scorsese and Roger Ebert. Though I was born in a different era, having been raised in a Catholic family and sent to a Catholic school, the rituals and dogmas of the Church are part of the mold in which I was shaped and although I can try to bury them, renounce them or ignore them, I can never erase them, for they were such an essential (if contradictory) part of my life growing up. For me, one of my earliest disillusionments with organized religion that I can recall occurred at the age of nine. Here’s the background, in brevity: When I was two-years (too young to remember), the priest of our church was embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal involving teenage altar boys in the parish. This was a few decades before sexual abuse in the Catholic Church gained prominence in the national and world headlines, and (as was often the case in those days) the diocese simply swept the matter under the rug and moved the priest to a new parish, where his impulses led him soon enough back to his old ways, only to be once again hushed up by the church hierarchy. The priest who came in after him was not only a reformer and a new thinker, but he was very critical of the hypocrisy within the church. He often used the pulpit to speak about these injustices, fully aware that the church was giving pedophile priests the opportunity to act again. He wrote letters, met with officials and otherwise caused a good deal of trouble for those higher up. And with his vocal opposition to what the church was doing, he soon began receiving threats on his safety and life in the form of letters and phone calls, some of them originating from those higher up in the church hierarchy. Rather than backing down, this priest informed the parishioners of these threats, which continued to increase. I didn’t realize much of what he spoke of in his sermons as a child, but I recognized that there was a contradiction between what the church preached and what the church, as an organized body, did. When I was nine-years old I attended the church with my mother (this was a rare occasion, as it was usually my grandmother who took me church) and my mother and many others in the pews wept as the priest delivered his final homily. In it he summed up, with wet eyes, the history of abusive acts committed by the former priest, the actions taken by the church to hide the priest’s crimes and sins, the actions he took as a pastor to bring the actions of the former priest and of the church itself to light and the threats on his life that he had been receiving. In response to the growing threats on his life he announced that he was stepping down from the priesthood. This was a rattling moment for me. Why was a priest who was trying to do something right being threatened by those within the church organization? Isn’t the church supposed to be a voice of moral goodness? It didn’t make sense. A couple of years later one of the staff members at our school was dismissed for her refusal to stop referring to God as “She.” And this was followed through the years by a number of other contradictions: a progressive nun (who taught us sexual education because she believed that abstinence only policies were nonsensical!) who was fired for her progressive views because her teachings were opposed to Church doctrine, a theology teacher who introduced us to the teachings of Marx and the liberation theologians (things that would never be mentioned from the priest’s pulpit), a theology teacher who organized student protests and a female teacher who was fired for her refusal to condemn homosexuality and later threatened for becoming ordained as a priest, challenging the Catholic Church’s stance that only men can be ordained. People were openly challenging the dogma and hierarchy of the Church, while still embracing faith and what they saw as the essential principles of Christianity (much like Tolstoy). These events, combined with insights gained through studies of history, anthropology, sociology and the “hard sciences” drew me further and further away from any sort of organized religion. So, with that lengthy, personal, and perhaps roundabout introduction to this review, how does this relate back to Tolstoy? In this book, A Confession and Other Religious Writings Tolstoy discusses many religious and social ideas – some which I agree with to some extent, and others which I find a bit questionable – ranging from the perversion of Christianity in the hands of the Church (i.e., organized religion is not representative of ‘true religion’); his own path away from religion and back to it; the need to abolish governments, all of which are based on violence; realizing the kingdom of God on earth (very similar to the liberation theologians who would follow); and, most importantly, his search for an answer to the question of the meaning of life. Tolstoy was undoubtedly very polarizing at this time and caused concern particularly for the Russian government, which wanted to censor him but feared that doing so could incite an unwanted response from his many followers. In works like War &amp; Peace and Anna Karenina characters such as Pierre and Levin sought answers to questions similar to those that Tolstoy posed in many of his religious works and these fictional characters are widely believed to be representative of the author and the struggles that were already beginning in his troubled soul. By the time that his religious writings came around, Tolstoy had renounced many of the literary masterpieces that we have come to know and love him for, seeing them as a shallow attempt to deliver some truth (that he didn’t even know) to the public. Before his great literary achievements were translated in English, Tolstoy was already known for his controversial religious views in much of the Western world. Today, as society seems to be moving further away from religion, it is Tolstoy’s great works of fiction that he is remembered for, and his religious and philosophical works – which first established his reputation in the West – have in many ways become obscured. Though it was existential and religious questions that Tolstoy was mostly concerned with even in his fictional works, at least as much time and effort (probably more) is spent discussing Tolstoy’s art (his writing style and use of repetition and very short sentences), his character development, and so on. And when we do discuss his philosophy, it is often as it is represented by his rich characters and their existential struggles (like Levin, Pierre or Prince Andrei) or his views on free will and determinism, as laid out in War &amp; Peace. But it was his views on religion that Tolstoy wanted most to be remembered for (hence when he thought he was close to death he took up a pen and wrote down his last thoughts on religion, which he felt he very much needed to share with the world, as represented by the last essay in this collection, “The Law of Love and the Law of Violence,” which he concludes succinctly with the words, “This is what I wanted to say to my fellow men before I die”). This collection of essays contains several pieces of a religious nature. They include (in order): “A Confession”; “What is Religion and of What Does Its Essence Consist?”; “Religion and Morality”; and “The Law of Love and the Law of Violence.” The essays are followed with helpful endnotes courtesy of the translator, Jane Kentish. “A Confession” begins: “I was baptized and brought up in the Orthodox Christian faith. I was instructed in it both as a child and throughout my boyhood and youth. But when at the age of eighteen I left university in my second year, I no longer believed in any of the things I had been taught. . . . Judging from various memories, I had never believed very seriously but had merely trusted in what I was taught and in what was professed by my elders; but this trust was very unstable.” Perhaps I was hooked from the beginning because I could very much relate – but whereas Tolstoy has made his way back to religion (though rejecting the Church), I continue to struggle with questions about the meaning of life, though less resolutely than Tolstoy. As the piece unfolded, it felt to me very personal. Tolstoy shared his doubts about the merits of his artistic works and even admitted that suicide was an idea that often presented itself to him in moments of grave existential uncertainty. Reading this piece was like having a very personal conversation with a close friend. At times I disagreed with his reasoning – as I have in my readings of others like Freud and Hegel, who have also presented me with ideas that I have questioned but have nonetheless caused me to reevaluate my own philosophical positions – and other times I agreed wholeheartedly (as was the case with passages such as: “Nowadays, as before, the public declaration and confession of Orthodoxy is usually encountered among dull-witted, cruel and immoral people who tend to consider themselves very important. Whereas intelligence, honesty, straightforwardness, good-naturedness and morality are qualities usually found among people who claim to be non-believers” or “[I]n much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow”).Tolstoy concludes in this piece:“I had come to faith because apart from it I had found nothing, absolutely nothing, other than destruction; it was therefore impossible to give up faith, and so I submitted. . . .” For him, faith in God was necessary to live. But, I do not think this is the case for all and I think it is possible to find meaning in life outside of religion. The second piece, “What is Religion and of What Does Its Essence Consist?” was also a very fascinating essay, and I again found myself nodding in agreement at times and other times arguing with the author in my mind, just as before. Namely I felt that some of his points about religion – such as the claim that it has been around from the beginning of humankind – run contrary to today’s anthropological consensus. But his arguments were very interesting even if not always entirely agreeable. In this essay he presents a definition of religion: “a relationship established between man, everlasting life, and God in conformity with reason and contemporary knowledge, and which alone pushed humanity forwards to its destined aim.” He also raises many points that were then and continue to be provocative, points raised before him by many of the Deists (notably Jefferson and Paine), about such things as St. Paul’s perversion and misrepresentation of Christ’s teachings, and the illogical/nonsensical teachings of the Church (including, but not limited to “the creation of light before the sun, the creation of the world six thousand years ago, the housing of all of the animals in the ark . . . the various immoral atrocities [of the Old Testament] . . . . the absurdity of the sacrament of . . . eating your own God” and so on). In the very short piece, “Religion and Morality,” written in 1893, Tolstoy attempts to provide answers to questions put to him by a German ethical cultural society about his understanding of the word ‘religion’ (a definition provided in the previous essay and reiterated here) and whether or not he feels that morality can exist outside of religion – he does not. On this matter I again disagreed with many of the points used in his argument, but appreciated the fact that he got my mental processes set in motion at full speed. For a great writer (like a great filmmaker for that matter) needs not write something that one agrees with, but need only make a compelling or moving case. I am troubled by the racist elements of many of the films of John Ford and by D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation as much as I am by some of Freud’s racist and sexist views and by Hegel’s conclusions in Reason in History but these are works with great artistic and/or philosophic merit. They may be “unenlightened,” as film critic Roger Ebert writes of Ford’s films, but they are still great works of art. And great works of art and philosophy are not “perfect,” but they do what they do well, using imagery, poetry or arguments that make a compelling case or make an impact on one’s life and outlook. Tolstoy’s views in this particular piece, and elsewhere, are a bit troubling for me, but his arguments are well-constructed and well-supported and he challenges me – as just one of his many readers – to see the world in a different way. I found myself underlining passages, making notes in the margins and dog-earring pages as much, if not more, when I disagreed with something as when I found myself approving of Tolstoy’s line of reasoning. The final essay in this collection, “The Law of Love and the Law of Violence,” was written near the end of Tolstoy’s life, in 1908, and its critique of organized religion (namely Christianity) is as damning as, if not more so than his earlier religious essays. Again, there is much here that challenges my own worldviews and religious outlook, but the work is in many ways prophetic and Tolstoy’s well-supported and incendiary arguments against the Church are spot on. Tolstoy’s arguments against slavery and capitalism in this essay are very similar to those made by Marx, another great nineteenth century thinker. But whereas Marx is a materialist, Tolstoy’s approach is, as Jane Kentish writes in the introduction: “spiritual, anti-materialist, based on universal truths of love, non-violence and moral perfection.” In this essay Tolstoy takes aim at class oppression, the exploitation of the poor and working classes at the hands of the rich and very notably against the hypocrisy of so-called Christian nations and their embrace of things such as war and militarism, police brutality and capital punishment. At the heart of all these essays are questions of religion and life purpose and an embrace of Christian principles—the necessity of creating the kingdom of God on earth and the importance of the Golden Rule and Christ’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’ more than any other teaching(s), i.e., the necessity of non-violence in all cases. In many ways, as can be evidenced from these essays, Tolstoy’s ideas were shaped by thinkers before him, including Blaise Pascal, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, the Deists and others. Many of his ideas were not new in the world, but he revived and refined them and brought these controversial issues to the forefront in late 19th century and early 20th century Russia and also to places like India, where Tolstoy and the non-violent civil disobedience of Henry David Thoreau, would shape the philosophies of the young M.K. Gandhi (whose life was captured wonderfully in film by director Richard Attenborough, who just yesterday passed). And they would also find expression in some of the liberation theologians (though some have been more willing to embrace violence in self-defense than Tolstoy ever would have permitted) and the teachings of Martin Luther King. War &amp; Peace might be considered Leo Tolstoy’s magnum opus. Anna Karenina is up there, too (undoubtedly among the greatest novels of the 19th century, and likely of all time). But these were not the works for which Tolstoy wanted to be remembered. Not only as a service to him, but to ourselves, Tolstoy’s philosophical and religious works deserve to be read at least once if not repeatedly. And perhaps my own experiences with religion and the contradictions of the church and my general interests in matters of philosophy, ethics and religion make me more interested than others would be. Yet even if not for the merits of the ideas themselves, from a literary perspective these essays deserve to be read as a key to the torments experienced by characters like Levin and Pierre on their paths of spiritual development. It is unlikely that many readers today will agree with all or even most of what Tolstoy preaches in these works. But, I think it can be agreed that, as in his works of fiction, Tolstoy here proves his thoroughness, craft and skill as a writer and thinker capable of not only setting the workings of the mind in motion, but also the inner-workings of the soul, which can but needn’t have solely a religious connotation. 

During the decades of his world fame as sage &amp; preacher as well as author of War &amp; Peace &amp; Anna Karenina, Tolstoy wrote prolifically in a series of essays &amp; polemics on issues of morality, social justice &amp; religion. These culminated in What is Art?, published in 1898. Although Tolstoy perceived the question of art to be a religious one, he considered &amp; rejected the idea that art reveals &amp; reinvents through beauty. The works of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Baudelaire &amp; even his own novels are condemned in the course of Tolstoy's impassioned &amp; iconoclastic redefinition of art as a force for good, for the improvement of humankind.

In 1930s Italy, a carefree Jewish waiter named Guido starts a fairy tale life by courting and marrying a lovely woman from a nearby city. Guido and his wife have a son and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. In an attempt to hold his family together and help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido imagines that the Holocaust is a game and that the grand prize for winning is a tank.

After his death sometime in his 43rd year, suburbanite Lester Burnham tells of the last few weeks of his life, during which he had no idea of his imminent passing. He is a husband to real estate agent Carolyn Burnham and father to high school student Jane Burnham. Although Lester and Carolyn once loved each other, they now merely tolerate each other. Typical wallflower Jane also hates both her parents; the three suffer individually in silence in their home life. Jane tries to steer clear of both her parents. Carolyn, relatively new to the real estate business, wants to create the persona of success to further her career, aspiring to the professional life of Buddy Kane, the king of the real estate business in their neighborhood. Lester merely walks mindlessly through life, including at his job in advertising. His company is downsizing, and he, like all the other employees, has to justify his position to the newly hired efficiency expert to keep his job. Things change for Lester when he falls in love at first sight with Jane's more experienced classmate, Angela Hayes. Both Janie and Angela can see Lester's sexual infatuation with Angela, who courts such attention from any man as a sign that she is model material, she having once appeared in Seventeen and is a career to which she aspires. Lester's infatuation with Angela gives him a reenergized view on life, where he openly doesn't care anymore what anyone thinks about what he does, anyone except Angela. This infatuation coincides with the Fittses moving in next door: homophobic disciplinarian US Marine Colonel Frank Fitts who rules the house with a military fist (that fist being both figurative and literal), his semi-comatose wife Barbara Fitts, and their bright and quietly subversive 18-year-old son Ricky Fitts, who openly abides by his father's rules while behind the scenes lives by his own quite different perspective. Much like Lester's infatuation, Ricky immediately becomes infatuated with Jane; he considers girls like Angela as ordinary. The entry of Angela and the Fittses into the Burnhams' lives ultimately leads to each of the players confronting what is truly in his or her heart.

The film follows three young men and their time spent in the French suburban "ghetto," over a span of twenty-four hours. Vinz, a Jew, Saïd, an Arab, and Hubert, a black boxer, have grown up in these French suburbs where high levels of diversity coupled with the racist and oppressive police force have raised tensions to a critical breaking point. During the riots that took place a night before, a police officer lost his handgun in the ensuing madness, only to leave it for Vinz to find. Now, with a newfound means to gain the respect he deserves, Vinz vows to kill a cop if his friend Abdel dies in the hospital, due the beating he received while in police custody.

In a lonesome house in the countryside between woods and cornfields live nine-year-old twin brothers who are waiting for their mother in the heat of summer. When she comes home, bandaged after cosmetic surgery, nothing is like before. The children start to doubt that this woman is actually their mother. An existential struggle for identity and fundamental trust emerges.

2014 film by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala

A French woman and a Japanese man have an affair while she is in Japan making a film about peace and the impact of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, The man, an architect, lost his family in the bombing. She recalls her lover during the war, a 23 year-old German soldier who later died. Despite the time they spend together, her attachment appears minimal and they go forward into the future.

After a magical night together, Adri voluntarily turns himself into the psychiatric institution where Carla lives.

An upcoming exhibition celebrating photographer Isabelle Reed three years after her untimely death, brings her eldest son Jonah back to the family house - forcing him to spend more time with his father Gene and withdrawn younger brother Conrad than he has in years. With the three of them under the same roof, Gene tries desperately to connect with his two sons, but they struggle to reconcile their feelings about the woman they remember so differently.

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1926. Einar Wegener (played by Eddie Redmayne) and his wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander) are a happily married couple. Both are artists, Einar preferring landscapes and she portraits. One day Einar poses for a portrait of Gerda's while wearing a dress. This is initially done as a lark, as is the later attendance at a party dressed as a woman. However, Einar soon discovers that she is in fact a woman and over time prefers being Lili. At first she and Gerda try to have her situation "cured" but this leads nowhere (other than to many doctors trying to have Lili locked up as a pervert and/or lunatic). Her voyage of self-discovery will ultimately lead to her undergoing the first ever sex-change operation.

Tony is admitted to a rehabilitation center after a serious ski accident. Dependent on the medical staff and pain relievers, she takes time to look back on a turbulent relationship that she experienced with Georgio. Why did they love each other? Who is this man that she loved so deeply? How did she allow herself to submit to this suffocating and destructive passion? A difficult healing process is in front of Tony, physical work which might finally set her free.

The Kims - mother and father Chung-sook and Ki-taek, and their young adult offspring, son Ki-woo and daughter Ki-jung - are a poor family living in a shabby and cramped half basement apartment in a busy lower working class commercial district of Seoul. Without even knowing it, they, especially Mr. and Mrs. Kim, literally smell of poverty. Often as a collective, they perpetrate minor scams to get by, and even when they have jobs, they do the minimum work required. Ki-woo is the one who has dreams of getting out of poverty by one day going to university. Despite not having that university education, Ki-woo is chosen by his university student friend Min, who is leaving to go to school, to take over his tutoring job to Park Da-hye, who Min plans to date once he returns to Seoul and she herself is in university. The Parks are a wealthy family who for four years have lived in their modernistic house designed by and the former residence of famed architect Namgoong. While Mr. and Mrs. Park are all about status, Mrs. Park has a flighty, simpleminded mentality and temperament, which Min tells Ki-woo to feel comfortable in lying to her about his education to get the job. In getting the job, Ki-woo further learns that Mrs. Park is looking for an art therapist for the Parks' adolescent son, Da-song, Ki-woo quickly recommending his professional art therapist friend "Jessica", really Ki-jung who he knows can pull off the scam in being the easiest liar of the four Kims. In Ki-woo also falling for Da-hye, he begins to envision himself in that house, and thus the Kims as a collective start a plan for all the Kims, like Ki-jung using assumed names, to replace existing servants in the Parks' employ in orchestrating reasons for them to be fired. The most difficult to get rid of may be Moon-gwang, the Parks' housekeeper who literally came with the house - she Namgoong's housekeeper when he lived there - and thus knows all the little nooks and crannies of it better than the Parks themselves. The question then becomes how far the Kims can take this scam in their quest to become their version of the Parks.

A family moves into a new neighborhood, and a 10-year-old born Laure deliberately presents as a boy named Mickäel to the neighborhood children. It is heavily implied that Mickäel is a closeted transgender boy. This film follows his experiences with his newfound friends, his potential love interest, Lisa, his younger sister and his parents. It focuses in on the significance of gender identity in social interaction from an early age, the difficulties of being transgender and young, and how Mickäel navigates these in the background of childhood play and love.

Paris, spring 1968. While most students take the lead in the May 'revolution', a French poet's twin son Theo and daughter Isabelle enjoy the good life in his grand Paris home. As film buffs they meet and 'adopt' modest, conservatively educated Californian student Matthew. With their parents away for a month, they drag him into an orgy of indulgence of all senses, losing all of his and the last of their innocence. A sexual threesome shakes their rapport, yet only the outside reality will break it up.

Åmål is a small insignificant town where nothing ever happens, where the latest trends are out of date when they get there. Young Elin has a bit of a bad reputation when it comes to guys, but the fact is that she is inexperienced in that matter. Another girl in her school, Agnes, is in love with her but is too shy to do anything about it. For a number of reasons, Elin ends up at Agnes' birthday party as the only guest. They have a girl's night out together but after that Elin desperately avoids Agnes, refusing to even consider her own feelings toward Agnes.

MIA (Ruth Vega Fernandez) and FRIDA (Liv Mjönes), both in their thirties, meet each other for the first time at their parents' engagement party. Mia's father, Lasse (Krister Henriksson), is about to get married to Frida's mother, Elizabeth (Lena Endre), which will make Mia and Frida stepsisters. Lasse's daughter, Mia, has not visited her father in years and arrives with her boyfriend, Tim (Joakim Nätterqvist), with whom she is about to get married. As Mia and Frida get to know one another, strong emotions begin to stir between them. Their relationship will turn everything upside down for everyone close to them with dramatic consequences.

The futility and irony of the war in the trenches in WWI is shown as a unit commander in the French army must deal with the mutiny of his men and a glory-seeking general after part of his force falls back under fire in an impossible attack.

Based on a true story, a group of allied escape artist-type prisoners-of-war are all put in an "escape proof" camp. Their leader decides to try to take out several hundred all at once. The first half of the movie is played for comedy, as the prisoners mostly outwit their jailers to dig the escape tunnel. The second half is high adventure as they use planes, trains, and boats to get out of occupied Europe.

A man wanders out of the desert after a four year absence. His brother finds him, and together they return to L.A. to reunite the man with his young son. Soon after, he and the boy set out to locate the mother of the child, who left shortly after the man disappeared.

What begins as an impulsive "date" between suburban husband Jack and neophyte escort Izzy, spins into a whirlwind three-way sexual affair including Jack's wife Emma, who has been keeping secrets of her own. Over a span of just 10 days, their "arrangement" breaks free of its financial bonds to become something else entirely: A real romance, with real stakes, involving three real people, confronting viewers with the compelling question: What if your best, truest, happiest life looked nothing like you thought it would? Would you be brave enough to live it?

It's been 40 years since the 12 colonies of mankind have heard from their progeny, the Cylons -- robotic creatures who rose up and declared war on their masters, then disappeared. In a sudden, devastating strike, the Cylons return and lay waste to the colonies, aided by human-looking Cylon variants and an unwitting fifth columnist. The attack forces Commander William Adama to call into action his museum-piece warship, the Battlestar Galactica, and soon its company of hotshot fighter pilots is blasting away at the invaders. But their best efforts can't prevent the colonies' obliteration. Fleeing the Cylon genocide, the Galactica leads a rag-tag fleet of survivors on a lonely quest to find humanity's fabled 13th colony -- a planet known as Earth.

Documentary series looking at the influence of art on the current day situation of our society.

After Earth is torn apart by religious differences and the human race teeters on the edge of extinction, an atheistic android architect sends two creations - Mother and Father - to start a peaceful, godless colony on the planet Kepler-22b. From executive producer

American science fiction television series

Set seven years after the world has become a frozen wasteland, Snowpiercer centers on the remnants of humanity, who inhabit a gigantic, perpetually-moving train that circles the globe. Class warfare, social injustice and the politics of survival are questioned in this riveting television adaptation.

2020 American post-apocalyptic dystopian thriller television drama series

A wizard attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. Fearful for his safety, the wizard kept him imprisoned in a glass bottle for decades. After his escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power.

Netflix's future television adaptation of Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman"

Emma, a famous and successful French horror writer, is forced to return to her hometown after the woman who haunted her dreams fifteen years ago begins to re-appear. The work she writes is apparently a work of fiction, but how much is fact?

As a group of movie-star agents in Paris, France go about their lives and work, they need to figure out how to carry on with the agency after their fearless leader's passing. This hour-long drama plays out much like a soap opera, but with more realistic problems and concerns. They don't do Olympic-size gymnastics to create drama or induce the viewer to believe a plot.

The story of Dark Shadows begins with newly hired governess Victoria Winters arriving at Collinwood, the Collins' estate in Collinsport, Maine in search of her mysterious origins. She soon is caught up in the strange events and mysteries that seem to surround the Collins family. Eventually, the Collins' "cousin from England", Barnabas Collins, arrives and takes the show in a new direction; his vampire curse introduces a new history of the Collins family. Part of this revised history is the popular character of the witch Angelique whose jealously led to the tragic death of Barnabas' great love Josette and who placed the curse upon Barnabas.

Explores a group of siblings who, as children, grew up in what would go on to become the most famous haunted house in the country. Now adults, and forced back together in the face of tragedy, the family must finally confront the ghosts of their past, some of which still lurk in their minds while others may actually be stalking the shadows of Hill House.

Explorer Sir Malcolm Murray, American gunslinger Ethan Chandler, scientist Victor Frankenstein and medium Vanessa Ives unite to combat supernatural threats in Victorian London.

2014 British-American horror drama television series

Elliot is a brilliant introverted young programmer who works as a cyber-security engineer by day and vigilante hacker by night. He also happens to be suffering from a strange condition similar to schizophrenia which he futilely tries to keep under control by regularly taking both legal and illegal drugs and visiting his therapist. When a strange feisty young woman named Darlene and a secretive middle-aged man calling himself Mr. Robot, who claims to be the mysterious leader of an underground hacking group known as F-Society, offer Elliot a chance to take his vigilantism to the next level and help them take down E-Corp, the corrupt multi-national financial company that Elliot works for and likes to call Evil Corp, Elliot finds himself at the crossroads. Mr. Robot, who has personal reasons for wanting to take down E-Corp, also reveals that he already has one ally, an even more mysterious, secretive and highly dangerous shadowy hacking group known only as Dark Army. Meanwhile, Elliot's childhood and only friend, Angela, who blames E-Corp for the death of their parents, tries to take down E-Corp legally by joining their ranks and trying to dig up evidence of their corruption from the inside. A wild card in this scheme becomes Tyrell Wellick, an unhinged psychopathic E-Corp yuppie, originally from Scandinavia, who has a very unusual relationship with his dominant and ambitious wife Joanna. After many twists and turns, Mr. Robot's plan is finally put in motion - with catastrophic (un)intended results. But that's just the end of the beginning of the real story.

American drama–thriller television series

Shadow is a man with a past. But now he wants nothing more than to live a quiet life with his wife and stay out of trouble. Until he learns that she's been killed in a terrible accident. Flying home for the funeral, as a violent storm rocks the plane, he is greeted by a strange man in the seat next to him. The man calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and he knows more about Shadow than is possible. He warns Shadow that a far bigger storm is coming. And from that moment on, nothing will ever be the same.

Namchulwoo is a poor fisherman living a simple but happy life with his wife and daughter on the north side of a river that divide s the two Korea's. Every day he goes fishing on the river,where the check point soldiers know him well and trust him not to cross the invisible border in the water.but one day his fishing net gets caught in the boat engine,and Nam cannot stop him self from drifting into the south.

When May was a child, she was a lonely girl with a lazy eye and without any friends except a strange, homemade doll kept in a glass case given by her mother on her birthday. May becomes a lonely, weird young woman, working in an animal hospital and assisting the veterinarian in surgeries and sewing operated animals most of the time. Her lesbian colleague Polly has a sort of attraction for her. When the shy May meets the mechanic Adam Stubbs, she loves his hands and has a crush on him. They date, but the bizarre behavior of May one night pushes Adam away from her. Alone, May has a brief affair with Polly, but she feels rejected again when her colleague meets Ambrosia. When her doll is accidentally broken, the deranged May decides to build a friend for her, using the best parts her acquaintances can offer.

Gerd Wiesler is an officer with the Stasi, the East German secret police. The film begins in 1984 when Wiesler attends a play written by Georg Dreyman, who is considered by many to be the ultimate example of the loyal citizen. Wiesler has a gut feeling that Dreyman can't be as ideal as he seems, and believes surveillance is called for. The Minister of Culture agrees but only later does Wiesler learn that the Minister sees Dreyman as a rival and lusts after his partner Christa-Maria. The more time he spends listening in on them, the more he comes to care about them. The once rigid Stasi officer begins to intervene in their lives, in a positive way, protecting them whenever possible. Eventually, Wiesler's activities catch up to him and while there is no proof of wrongdoing, he finds himself in menial jobs - until the unbelievable happens.

2006 German film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Drama set in a repressed, deeply religious community in the north of Scotland, where a naive young woman named Bess McNeil meets and falls in love with Danish oil-rig worker Jan. Bess and Jan are deeply in love but, when Jan returns to his rig, Bess prays to God that he returns for good. Jan does return, his neck broken in an accident aboard the rig. Because of his condition, Jan and Bess are now unable to enjoy a sexual relationship and Jan urges Bess to take another lover and tell him the details. As Bess becomes more and more deviant in her sexual behavior, the more she comes to believe that her actions are guided by God and are helping Jan recover.

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tv show

Puppeteer Craig Schwartz and animal lover and pet store clerk Lotte Schwartz are just going through the motions of their marriage. Despite not being able to earn a living solely through puppeteering, Craig loves his profession as it allows him to inhabit the skin of others. He begins to take the ability to inhabit the skin of others to the next level when he is forced to take a job as a file clerk for the off-kilter LesterCorp, located on the five-foot tall 7½ floor of a Manhattan office building. Behind one of the filing cabinets in his work area, Craig finds a hidden door which he learns is a portal into the mind of

In NYC's Chinatown, recluse math genius Max (Sean Gullette) believes "everything can be understood in terms of numbers," and he looks for a pattern in the system as he suffers headaches, plays Go with former teacher Sol Robeson (Mark Margolis), and fools around with an advanced computer system he's built in his apartment. Both a Wall Street company and a Hasidic sect take an interest in his work, but he's distracted by blackout attacks, hallucinations, and paranoid delusions..

Paul Rivers, an ailing mathematician lovelessly married to English émigré; Christina Peck, who's hiding a secret past; and Jack Jordan, an ex-convict who has found Jesus are brought together by a terrible accident which changes their lives.

2003 film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Christine Brown is a loan officer at a bank but is worried about her lot in life. She's in competition with a competent colleague for an assistant manager position and isn't too sure about her status with a boyfriend. Worried that her boss will think less of her if she shows weakness, she refuses a time extension on a loan to an old woman, Mrs. Ganush, who now faces foreclosure and the loss of her house. In retaliation, the old woman place a curse on her which, she subsequently learns, will result in her being taken to hell in a few days time. With the help of a psychic, she tries to rid herself of the demon, but faces several hurdles in the attempt.

Mort Rainey is a successful writer going through a rather unfriendly divorce from his wife of ten years, Amy. Alone and bitter in his cabin, he continues to work on his writing when a stranger named John Shooter shows up on his doorstep, claiming Rainey stole his story. Mort says he can prove the story belongs to him and not Shooter, but while Mort digs around for the magazine which published the story in question years ago, things begin to happen around Shooter. Mort's dog dies, people begin to die, and his divorce proceedings with Amy continue to get uglier. It seems that Shooter has Mort over a barrel, but perhaps Mort has his own ideas on how to resolve all the problems that plague him lately.

While celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, a couple are traveling through the desert with their 3 children, son in law and their baby granddaughter. While the rest of the family agrees there are plenty of better and more appropriate things to do to celebrate an anniversary, they make do with what they have, but things take a turn after a sketchy gas station attendant informs them about a "short cut" that will take them in between a series of hills in the desert. It doesn't take too long before they realize they're not alone and the hills indeed do have eyes.

When a videographer answers an advert of the website Craigslist for a one-day job in a remote mountain town to video the last messages of a dying man, the job takes a strange turn when the last messages get darker and darker. The videographer continues to see the job through, but when it is time to leave he is unable to find his keys, and when he receives a strange phone call he finds his client is not at all what he initially seemed to be.

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