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Read the Longman Simplified English version.This book is important because it's a window into the lifestyles of people living in the 18th century. I have to admit the dullness of the interactions mixed with the third person omniscient style (which lacks emotions) did not give me a good first impression of the novel. Yet, due to curiosity as to why this is a classic I decided to keep going. As far as petty drama goes I was pleasantly surprised upon reaching 3/4 of the book. (view spoiler)[When the youngest sister Lydia ran off with the sleazy Mr. Wickham the plot took an interesting turn which significantly changed my opinion. The title of the book is also very fitting. Pride = Mr. Darcy Prejudice = Elizabeth The story about two unlikely people that fall for each other while overcoming their flaws.  (hide spoiler)]

I had removed this review, which violates Article 2 of the Terms of Use:You agree not to post User Content that: (i) may create a risk of harm, loss, physical or mental injury, emotional distress, death, disability, disfigurement, or physical or mental illness to you, to any other person, or to any animal.Looking at the comment thread, it is abundantly clear that the review not only may, but indeed has caused emotional distress to several Potter fans. I would like to offer my apologies to these unfortunate people, who had every right to expect better service from Goodreads. But, despite the above, I have decided on mature consideration that I will attempt an experiment: I am reinstating the original review, hiding the dangerous and inflammatory content inside a spoiler tag. If you are a person easily offended by negative comments about Harry Potter and still decide to click it, then you have only yourself to blame. You have been warned.(view spoiler)[I got into an argument the other day with an articulate 17 year old Harry Potter fan - let's call him D - who wanted to know why I was being so nasty in my review of Deathly Hallows. What was wrong with it? I offered various structural criticisms: the ending is abrupt and unconvincing, the subplot with the Horcruxes has not been adequately foreshadowed in the earlier volumes, and the book as a whole is overlong and boring. D expressed surprise that I could call Deathly Hallows boring, when I'd given five stars to Madame Bovary and Animal Farm, both of which he considered far duller. The discussion continued for some time. In the end, I said I would write a review summarising my objections to the series as a whole. Here it is.As I said to D, it's not the books or the author. The early Potter books are cute and entertaining, and J.K. Rowling seems like a nice person - if someone's going to scoop the literary Powerball jackpot, why not her? What I very strongly object to is the way the books have been marketed. About 10 years ago, it seems to me, some clever people figured out a new marketing strategy, which they first applied to Potter; when that came to an end, the same methods were used for Twilight. Both series have enjoyed a level of success which is utterly disproportionate to their quality, and which is also unprecedented in literary history. Twilight clearly follows Potter; I've had several discussions about what preceded Potter, and the answer, everyone seems to agree, is that there was no earlier success story of this kind. Before Potter, there was no YA series of dubious merit that absolutely everyone read. I think it's uncontroversial that Potter, in terms of literary quality, is better than Twilight, but Twilight has been even more successful. At one point, the four volumes occupied the top four spots in the New York Times bestseller list. On Goodreads, nearly half of the top 50 reviews are of Twilight books. This is an absurd and unnatural state of affairs. Even though Twilight may not be quite as bad as is sometimes made out - I'm one of many people who have tried to defend it - there's no way it deserves this level of attention.So why is everyone reading it, and why, before that, was everyone reading Potter? As I said, I think it's primarily about the marketing, though I wish I was more sure about the details. Here, at any rate, are some thoughts. First, the publishers are aggressively using economies of scale and deals with third parties. They print very large numbers of copies, and they work together with movie studios, game companies and merchandisers to cross-promote them. I think it's particularly important that a large proportion of the books are sold, not at bookstores, but at normal supermarkets. It's well known that the cover price is usually marked down to the point where the supermarket is not in fact making any profit; they have discovered that they can successfully treat it as a loss leader. This is causing great pain to independent bookstores. Some of them, I have read, have adopted the desperate expedient of buying copies at supermarkets and then reselling them. Second, let's look at the content and style. Even though Potter and Twilight are fairly different in some ways, they also have many strong similarities. Above all, they are extremely easy to read, at every level. The vocabulary is unchallenging; the sentences are short and simple; most characters are one-dimensional stereotypes; the story is uncomplicatedly plot-driven; there are few references to other works of literature. You can read these books if you're tired, if you're sleepy, if you have poor reading skills, if you've never read anything else. They consequently have a very large potential audience.Third, they describe a comforting, emasculated world in which most of the things that make our own world so difficult and unpleasant have been removed. Most strikingly, there is no sex; in Harry Potter, which is supposed to be about fairly normal teens, no one masturbates, no girls get pregnant, none of them are labelled sluts because they've had sex with more than one boy (sometimes one is enough, for that matter), no one gets their heart broken and drops out of school or starts taking drugs as a result, no one is stuck in a dead-end relationship that they wish they could escape from, but can't. The worst thing that happens in either series is the sequence in New Moon where Edward temporarily leaves Bella. Meyer notoriously doesn't describe Bella's feelings at all, but just leaves several pages blank. Once, in fact not so long ago, most adults would have been embarrassed to be seen reading YA literature of this kind; to start with, the comforting word "YA" hadn't been invented yet, and they would have been reading children's books. Somehow, there's been a shift in standards. You look around you on a bus to see what people are reading, and you can be pretty sure you'll see at least a couple of people over 20 engrossed in Potter or Twilight. It's odd that this has happened, and I wish I understood why.In conclusion, I couldn't help being struck by the two books D chose to contrast against Potter. D, Madame Bovary is going to outlast both of these authors because Emma is a real person who experiences the crazy and contradictory emotions that real people experience when they are very unhappy, and as a result she behaves in a crazy and contradictory way; also, Flaubert, unlike Rowling and Meyer, took a great deal of trouble over his prose, and created some of the most beautiful and ironic passages in world literature. There aren't many books I'd call masterpieces, but this is one of them. And finally, Animal Farm is indeed an allegory of the Russian Revolution. More importantly, though, it's about how smart, unscrupulous people manipulate trusting, weak people. Tens of millions of people are reading Potter and Twilight, not because the books are well-written or interesting, but because the readers have been manipulated into buying them by the Napoleons and Squealers of this world. That's what I'm objecting to. Think about it for a moment. (hide spoiler)]

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

It is not so much that The Life of Pi, is particularly moving (although it is). It isn’t even so much that it is written with language that is both delicate and sturdy all at once (which it is, as well). And it’s certainly not that Yann Martel’s vision filled passages are so precise that you begin to feel the salt water on your skin (even though they are). It is that, like Bohjalian and Byatt and all of the great Houdini’s of the literary world, in the last few moments of your journey – after you’ve felt the emotions, endured the moments of heartache, yearned for the resolution of the characters’ struggle – that you realize the book is not what you thought it was. The story transforms, instantly, and forever.And in those last few chapters, you suddenly realize that the moral has changed as well.You feel Martel’s words lingering, suggesting, and you find yourself wondering whether you are his atheist who takes the deathbed leap of faith – hoping for white light and love? Or the agnostic who , in trying to stay true to his reasonable self, explains the mysteries of life and death in only scientific terms, lacking imagination to the end, and, essentially, missing the better story?There is no use in trying to provide a brief synopsis for this ravishing tale of a young boy from India left adrift in the Pacific in a lifeboat with a tiger who used to reside in his father’s zoo in Pondicherry. There is no use because once you finish the book you might decide that this was not, indeed, what the book was about at all. There is no use because, depending on your philosophical bent, the book will mean something very different to your best friend than it will to you. There is no use because it is nearly impossible to describe what makes this book so grand.Read this book. Not because it is an exceptional piece of literary talent. It is, of course. But there are many good authors and many good books. While uncommon, they are not endangered. Read this book because in recent memory - aside from Jose Saramago’s arresting Blindness – there have been no stories which make such grand statements with such few elements. As Pi says in his story “Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.” It is the same with Martel’s undulating fable of a book about a boy in a boat with a tiger. A simple story with potentially life altering consequences for it’s readers. As Martel writes, "The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?" Like Schroedinger's cat in the box, the way this book is understood, the way it is perceived affects what it is. There has been some talk that this book will make it’s readers believe in god. I think it’s a question of perspective. To behold this gem of a novel as an adventure of man against the elements (the “dry, yeastless factuality” of what actually happened) is certainly one way to go about it. But to understand this piece to be something indescribable, something godlike, is by far the greater leap of faith.Oh, but worth the leap, if the reader is like that atheist, willing to see the better story.	

ISBN 9780307277671 moved to this edition.While in Paris, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is awakened by a phone call in the dead of the night. The elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum, his body covered in baffling symbols. As Langdon and gifted French cryptologist Sophie Neveu sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci—clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.Even more startling, the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion—a secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci—and he guarded a breathtaking historical secret. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine puzzle—while avoiding the faceless adversary who shadows their every move—the explosive, ancient truth will be lost forever.

You can find the redesigned cover of this edition HERE.This best-selling Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1847 first edition of the novel. For the Fourth Edition, the editor has collated the 1847 text with several modern editions and has corrected a number of variants, including accidentals. The text is accompanied by entirely new explanatory annotations.New to the fourth Edition are twelve of Emily Bronte's letters regarding the publication of the 1847 edition of Wuthering Heights as well as the evolution of the 1850 edition, prose and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and poetry selections by the author, four reviews of the novel, and Edward Chitham's insightful and informative chronology of the creative process behind the beloved work.Five major critical interpretations of Wuthering Heights are included, three of them new to the Fourth Edition. A Stuart Daley considers the importance of chronology in the novel. J. Hillis Miller examines Wuthering Heights's problems of genre and critical reputation. Sandra M. Gilbert assesses the role of Victorian Christianity plays in the novel, while Martha Nussbaum traces the novel's romanticism. Finally, Lin Haire-Sargeant scrutinizes the role of Heathcliff in film adaptations of Wuthering Heights. A Chronology and updated Selected Bibliography are also included.

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization -- the Illuminati. In a desperate race to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, and deserted cathedrals, and into the depths of the most secretive vault on earth...the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.(back cover)

Matilda is a little girl who is far too good to be true. At age five-and-a-half she's knocking off double-digit multiplication problems and blitz-reading Dickens. Even more remarkably, her classmates love her even though she's a super-nerd and the teacher's pet. But everything is not perfect in Matilda's world. For starters she has two of the most idiotic, self-centered parents who ever lived. Then there's the large, busty nightmare of a school principal, Miss ("The") Trunchbull, a former hammer-throwing champion who flings children at will and is approximately as sympathetic as a bulldozer. Fortunately for Matilda, she has the inner resources to deal with such annoyances: astonishing intelligence, saintly patience, and an innate predilection for revenge.She warms up with some practical jokes aimed at her hapless parents, but the true test comes when she rallies in defense of her teacher, the sweet Miss Honey, against the diabolical Trunchbull. There is never any doubt that Matilda will carry the day. Even so, this wonderful story is far from predictable. Roald Dahl, while keeping the plot moving imaginatively, also has an unerring ear for emotional truth. The reader cares about Matilda because in addition to all her other gifts, she has real feelings.

Part blistering espionage thriller, part riveting police procedural, and part piercing exposé on social injustice, The Girl Who Played with Fire is a masterful, endlessly satisfying novel.  Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, the two reporters responsible for the article are murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander’s innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Joanne Rowling, also known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote Harry Potter, a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The series has sold over 600 million copies, been translated into 84 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. The Casual Vacancy (2012) was her first novel for adults. She writes Cormoran Strike, an ongoing crime fiction series, under the alias Robert Galbraith.

At last in paperback in one complete volume, here are the five novels from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker series. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space."The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat."Life, the Universe and Everything"The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky- so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew."So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak."Mostly Harmless"Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?Also includes the short story "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe".

The war against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.And yet . . .As in all wars, life goes on. The Weasley twins expand their business. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate - and lose a few eyebrows in the process. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, through Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.So it's the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complete story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort - and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability.

The Hunger Games Trilogy: these are my issues, let me show you them.Most of the good fiction/fantasy/scifi literature these days is coming out of the Young Adult and Juvenile areas, so every six months or so I round up the new stuff and go on a reading spree. Around two years ago that included the Hunger Games trilogy (thanks to an ARC copy of Mockingjay). I did a review on that for my work newsletter which made me think about it for a good long while. (It wasn’t my best review because we’re encouraged not to say anything bad about the books, the object being to get people to read, not to drive them away.)The first book, Hunger Games, is awesome. Beyond awesome. I loved it and I greatly encourage anyone who hasn’t read it to pick it up now and get to reading! Engaging characters, tight (in both senses of the word) narrative, a plot that, while being far from original, seems shiny and new for all the different spins Suzanne Collins puts on it. It draws out your emotions and engages them, keeps you on the edge of your seat. Highly, highly recommended.The problem is, it’s best if you stop there. I sure wish the story had. At least Hunger Games stands on its own, and after reading the other two in the trilogy, I know that I can go back and just reread the first one and never have to touch the other two to have a complete fulfilling story.That’s not to say that the second book is terrible. Catching Fire is actually pretty good. Not up to the same standards as the first book - it does feel like exactly what it is, the middle book in a trilogy - but not a bad read at all. Basically it both asks and answers the age-old question, “If you could go back and do it all over, knowing everything you do now, would you do anything differently?” Which is intriguing, definitely. But at the same time, it is kind of a rehash of the first book, which is what makes it less engaging. The characters, the politics and the good narrative stop it from feeling tired and dull, and again, it’s a good read, but it’s lost its originality and some of the excitement that made the first book so entertaining.And then there’s the real problem; Catching Fire isn’t a complete narrative on its own. To know the whole story you have to read the third book, Mockingjay.Oh man, Mockingjay. The book that had all the potential to be a wonderful, heart-racing, utterly amazing finale to the trilogy. So much potential; so much fail. The ideas were there, but the execution was...just that. An execution. It’s like everything that would’ve made it a phenomenal book was taken out back and double-tapped.Even a couple years later I’m still somewhat angry when I think about it. Still so disappointed. I keep asking myself, did the author have a word limit she had to adhere to? Was she over her deadline by too much and had to rush? Was she simply bored/tired of this world? What on earth could’ve made her do this?Going against one of the major rules of good writing, Mockingjay is an exercise in telling instead of showing. Nothing big happens in the book that the author isn’t telling us about it instead of giving us the wonderful descriptions of the previous two books. With very few exceptions, events happen off screen and we get an info dump explaining them. That alone was just terrible to read. But then there’s poor Katniss.Remember the spitfire, kick-ass woman of the previous two books, the one who was determined to do whatever she could to survive and thus ensure her family’s survival? Yeah, well, say goodbye to her before reading this last book because you won’t be seeing much of her again.It’s like she just floats through events, letting things happen to her and barely reacting. She just lets herself be used, over and over, turns into something akin to a leaf in the wind. The few decisions she does make often don’t make any sort of good sense and we’re left wondering if this is really Katniss or a robot in a Katniss skin.The introduction of new characters should help things, but the narrative fails there too. The characters (heck, even the old ones we’re familiar with!) aren’t given nearly enough fleshing out; they’re just there. They don’t feel as real, as three dimensional as characters did in the last two books.The combination of all that leaves us with a flat, lifeless book and what amounts to a boring read. You want to get excited, I mean, there are serious, emotional things going on! Or at least they’re supposed to be. Hard to say when you don’t feel it and it’s just words on a page. The originality, excitement and all the drive behind the first two books is just gone. Vanished. And it’s painful to see.Yeah, two years gone and I’m still not over that. Such a let-down.I still encourage people to pick up The Hunger Games, but I barely give the next two in the trilogy more than a cursory mention. I reserve all my glowing praise for the first book and try to pretend the third never happened.

Harry Potter's life is miserable. His parents are dead and he's stuck with his heartless relatives, who force him to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. But his fortune changes when he receives a letter that tells him the truth about himself: he's a wizard. A mysterious visitor rescues him from his relatives and takes him to his new home, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.After a lifetime of bottling up his magical powers, Harry finally feels like a normal kid. But even within the Wizarding community, he is special. He is the boy who lived: the only person to have ever survived a killing curse inflicted by the evil Lord Voldemort, who launched a brutal takeover of the Wizarding world, only to vanish after failing to kill Harry.Though Harry's first year at Hogwarts is the best of his life, not everything is perfect. There is a dangerous secret object hidden within the castle walls, and Harry believes it's his responsibility to prevent it from falling into evil hands. But doing so will bring him into contact with forces more terrifying than he ever could have imagined.Full of sympathetic characters, wildly imaginative situations, and countless exciting details, the first installment in the series assembles an unforgettable magical world and sets the stage for many high-stakes adventures to come.

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...

The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, west of Italy. The novel looks into the experiences of Yossarian and the other airmen in the camp, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home.

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990) is a World Fantasy Award-nominated novel written as a collaboration between the English authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.The book is a comedy about the birth of the son of Satan and the coming of the End Times. There are attempts by the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley to sabotage the coming of the end times, having grown accustomed to their comfortable surroundings in England. One subplot features a mixup at the small country hospital on the day of birth and the growth of the Antichrist, Adam, who grows up with the wrong family, in the wrong country village. Another subplot concerns the summoning of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, each a big personality in their own right. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 68 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.

It's 1946 and author Juliet Ashton can't think what to write next. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - by chance, he's acquired a book that once belonged to her - and, spurred on by their mutual love of reading, they begin a correspondence. When Dawsey reveals that he is a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, her curiosity is piqued and it's not long before she begins to hear from other members. As letters fly back and forth with stories of life in Guernsey under the German Occupation, Juliet soon realizes that the society is every bit as extraordinary as its name.

High-Rise is a 1975 novel by British writer J. G. Ballard. The story describes the disintegration of a luxury high-rise building as its affluent residents gradually descend into violent chaos. As with Ballard's previous novels Crash (1973) and Concrete Island (1974), High-Rise inquires into the ways in which modern social and technological landscapes could alter the human psyche in provocative and hitherto unexplored ways. It was adapted into a film of the same name, in 2015, by director Ben Wheatley.Following his divorce, doctor and medical-school lecturer Robert Laing moves into his new apartment on the 25th floor of a recently completed high-rise building on the outskirts of London. This tower block provides its affluent tenants all the conveniences and commodities that modern life has to offer: a supermarket, bank, restaurant, hair salon, swimming pools, a gymnasium, its own school, and high-speed lifts. Its cutting-edge amenities allow the occupants to gradually become uninterested in the outside world, providing them with accommodations and a secure environment.

Let’s face it….\
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Jonathan Swift was a snarky, snarky bitch. Gulliver’s Travels is like a giant  pimp slap across the human race face and I am so glad I finally read this in a non-school, non-structured environment because I had a whole lot more fun with it this time around. Swift’s wit, insight and delivery are often, though not always, remarkable and he crams more well thought out jabs and toe-steppings in this slim 250 page novel than I would have thought possible in a work twice this long.   This is certainly a classic that I believe people should read and experience for themselves outside of any required scholarly endeavors because I think that many of the ills, injustices and idiocies that Swift addresses in this novel are still, unfortunately, very relevant today. While Swift is short on resolutions or ideas for improvement (one of my disappointments) he does a marvelous job of exposing the problems that he perceived as existing within the 18th Century world, most particularly England, and opening the door for a more expansive, popular discussion on these issues.Kudos for that, Mr Swift.  From a plot perspective, Gulliver’s Travels is a series of adventures by Lemuel Gulliver to various undiscovered, fictional worlds that act as a backdrop for Swift, through his main character/mouthpiece, to scathe, rebuke, poke fun at and/or question all manner of political, religious  and social institutions, philosophies and groups. Everything from blind adherence to political ideologies or religious dogma, to ideological intolerance, to arbitrary social divisions and even the non-practical aspects of the rampant scientific explorations so in vogue at the time. Few groups were spared from Swift's caustic lens and many of his attacks are vehement bordering on brutal. Good. That is how such a work should be IMHO.  Overall, I thought this was very worthwhile and many of Swift’s commentaries were piercing,  brilliant and exceptionally well done. Some of my personal favorites include:  ** Parodying the massive waste of energy and resources expended in political infighting in Great Britain between the Whigs and Tories by having the two Lilliputian political parties separated solely by the aesthetic choice between wearing high heels and low heels. I can only imagine how this parody played out among the MP of England at the time.  ** Making light of the tremendous importance placed on seemingly trivial differences in religious doctrine that often lead to the most acrimonious wars and civil strife by explaining that the genesis of a long and bloody war between rival factions of Lilliputians stems from a disagreement over where to crack eggs. One group break their eggs on the small end (Small Endians) and the other break their eggs on the large end (Big Endians). What I found most clever about this attack was the use of an ambiguous reference in each side's “holy book” that states, “all true believers break their eggs at the convenient end.” That is just about perfect satire Mr. Swift. ** A biting jab at traditions and customs that people cling to long after there is no practical reason to do so is eloquently made when Gulliver describes the Lilliputians custom of burying their dead head first. \
   They bury their dead with their heads directly downwards, because they hold an opinion that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again, in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet. The learned among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine, but the practice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar. \
 When Swift is on his game, he is very, very effective.** A wonderful anti-war statement is made through the horror and disgust with which the King of the giant Brobdingnagians (their size depicted as representing moral superiority) reacts to Gulliver’s description of gunpowder and his offer to teach the Brobdingnagians the formula for producing it: \
   I told him of ‘an invention, discovered between three and four hundred years ago, to make a certain powder…[t]hat a proper quantity of this powder…would drive a ball of iron or lead, with such violence and speed, as nothing was able to sustain its force. That the largest balls thus discharged, would not only destroy whole ranks of an army at once, but batter the strongest walls to the ground, sink down ships, with a thousand men in each, to the bottom of the sea, and when linked together by a chain, would cut through masts and rigging, divide hundreds of bodies in the middle, and lay all waste before them. That we often put this powder into large hollow balls of iron, and discharged them by an engine into some city we were besieging, which would rip up the pavements, tear the houses to pieces, burst and throw splinters on every side, dashing out the brains of all who came near…...The king was struck with horror at the description I had given of those terrible engines, and the proposal I had made. ‘He was amazed, how so impotent and groveling an insect as I…could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation which I had painted as the common effects of those destructive machines; whereof,’ he said, ‘some evil genius, enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver.’ As for himself, he protested, that although few things delighted him so much as new discoveries in art or in nature, yet he would rather lose half his kingdom, than be privy to such a secret; which he commanded me, as I valued any life, never to mention any more.\
 Sorry for the long quote, but I thought that was a particularly moving passage. ** My personal favorite (purely from an enjoyment standpoint) is the depiction of the scientifically adept and common-senseless Laputans  who exemplify Swift’s serious gripe against scientific research that doesn’t have a practical and foreseeable benefit to society. \
  The first man I saw was of a meagre aspect, with sooty hands and face…[H]e has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers, which were to be put in phials hermetically sealed, and let out to warm the air in raw inclement summers. He told me, he did not doubt, that, in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate….\
 Gulliver’s exploration of the scientific academy of Laputa was my favorite part of the novel and I thought Swift’s satiric chops were at there sharpest in relaying the societal dysfunction of the Laputans.  Now I must drop some ice in the bath water. As much as there was to enjoy in this work, I was not as blown away by it as I would have liked to have been. For one thing, I thought that Swift’s prose was merely serviceable and I didn’t find much in the way of eloquence in his delivery. It was missing the ear-pleasing lyrical quality that I have come to expect when reading classic literature. The writing wasn’t bad by any means but it wasn’t as enjoyable or memorable as I had hoped. This may be an unfair critique given that this book’s legacy lies with its content, but the lack of beautiful prose kept me from being able to enjoy the interludes and non-meaty passages of the work.    Also, some of Swift’s critiques fell a bit flat and didn't resonate with me as much as those mentioned above. For instance, the recasting of famous historical figures like Alexander, Hannibal and Caesar as being more subject to the moral frailties of the human animal than the established texts would have us believe. Swift uses this as the springboard to discuss the less than wholesome practices of securing political power today and that is a good thing. I just found the use of the legends of antiquity unnecessary and not particularly effective. That’s probably a personal bias of mine as I have always found those figures fascinating to read about.    Here's my biggest problem. One of the principal arguments that Swift makes in his novel is that balance and moderation are the keys to success both individually and as a people. Extremes of behavior and belief are the seeds from which disastrous consequences are born, according to Swift. That’s easy to say and it has an attractive ring to it, but I wish Swift had done a little more with it. This walkmy right into my biggest complaint about the story…the ending. I thought that the ambiguity of Gulliver’s condition at the end of the novel was a bit of a cop out. It appears as though the reader is left to determine whether Gulliver was (1) a man disgusted with humanity as a result of his exposure to the morally righteous and logically rational Houyhnhnm or (2) a man whose ill-conceived and intemperate worship of, and infatuation with the Houyhnhnm made him just another unbalanced yahoo whose loss of perspective and left him deranged.   Part of the answer of this would stem from determining whether Swift was holding up the Houyhnhnms as a model to follow or whether their own passionless adherence to logic was itself a subject of parody. However, as with the end, I think Swift was less than certain of his position (or of the position he wanted to state) and thus left too much ambiguity to the reader. Now I understand that often these kinds of soft endings are perfect as they allow the reader to interpret the work for themselves. However, here where Swift has been bludgeoning the reader with his opinions throughout the entire work, to suddenly punt and not clearly express a case for his protagonist seems to be a miss. That said, I am the first to acknowledge that it is anywhere from a distinct possibility to a metaphysical certainty that the “miss” here is on my part, but that was how I saw it. I wanted Swift to wrap up and summarize the effect of the journey on Gulliver and provide a statement about what should be drawn from his experience so that a better road could be paved for using his travels to address the problems on which it shined its light.   3.0 to 3.5 stars. Still…HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

This is a sortable list of American football sports video games.

This is a list of Bowling computer and video games.

Capture the flag (CTF) is a traditional outdoor sport where two or more teams each have a flag (or other markers) and the objective is to capture the other team's flag, located at the team's "base", and bring it safely back to their own base. Enemy players can be "tagged" by players in their home territory and, depending on the rules, they may be out of the game, become members of the opposite team, sent back to their own territory, or frozen in place ("in jail") until freed by a member of their own team.Capture the Flag requires a playing field of some sort. In both indoor and outdoor versions, the field is divided into two clearly designated halves, known as territories. Players form two teams, one for each territory. Each side has a "flag" which is most often a piece of fabric, but can be any object small enough to be easily carried by a person (night time games might use flashlights, glowsticks or lanterns as the "flags"). Sometimes teams wear dark colors at night to make it more difficult for their opponents to see them. If one team has the opposing team's flag on their territory they may be tagged because they have the opposing team's flag.

Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players per side). Badminton is often played as a casual outdoor activity in a yard or on a beach; formal games are played on a rectangular indoor court. Points are scored by striking the shuttlecock with the racquet and landing it within the opposing side's half of the court.
Each side may only strike the shuttlecock once before it passes over the net. Play ends once the shuttlecock has struck the floor or if a fault has been called by the umpire, service judge, or (in their absence) the opposing side.

Air hockey is a game where two players play against each other on a low-friction table. Air hockey requires an air-hockey table, two player-held strikers, and a puck.
Air Hockey table has very smooth and slippery surface which reduces friction by suspending the puck on cushion of air, so that this its motion is much less altered by friction, causing it to glide in a straight line at relatively constant velocity across the table.
A typical air hockey table consists of a large smooth playing surface, a surrounding rail to prevent the puck and paddles from leaving the table, and slots in the rail at either end of the table that serve as goals. On the ends of the table behind and below the goals, there is usually a puck return. Additionally, tables will typically have some sort of machinery that produces a cushion of air on the playing surface through tiny holes, with the purpose of reducing friction and increasing play speed. In some tables, the machinery is eschewed in favor of a slick table surface, usually plastic, in the interest of saving money in both manufacturing and maintenance costs. Note that these tables are technically not air hockey tables since no air is involved, however, they are still generally understood to be as such due to the basic similarity of gameplay. There also exist pucks that use a battery and fan to generate their own air cushion, but as they are prone to breakage, they are commonly marketed only as toys. An air hockey table has very little friction.

Solitaire is a computer game included with Microsoft Windows, based on a card game of the same name, also known as Klondike.
Microsoft has included the game as part of its Windows product line since Windows 3.0, starting from 1990. The game was developed in 1989 by the intern Wes Cherry. The card deck itself was designed by Macintosh pioneer Susan Kare.Microsoft intended Solitaire "to soothe people intimidated by the operating system," and at a time where many users were still unfamiliar with graphical user interfaces, it proved useful in familiarizing them with the use of a mouse, such as the drag-and-drop technique required for moving cards.According to Microsoft telemetry, Solitaire was among the three most-used Windows programs and FreeCell was seventh, ahead of Word and Microsoft Excel. Lost business productivity by employees playing Solitaire has become a common concern since it became standard on Microsoft Windows. In 2006, a New York City worker was fired after Mayor Michael Bloomberg saw the Solitaire game on the man's office computer.

Charades (UK: , US: ) is a parlor or party word guessing game. Originally, the game was a dramatic form of literary charades: a single person would act out each syllable of a word or phrase in order, followed by the whole phrase together, while the rest of the group guessed. A variant was to have teams who acted scenes out together while the others guessed. Today, it is common to require the actors to mime their hints without using any spoken words, which requires some conventional gestures. Puns and visual puns were and remain common.
A charade was a form of literary riddle popularized in France in the 18th century where each syllable of the answer was described enigmatically as a separate word before the word as a whole was similarly described. The term charade was borrowed into English from French in the second half of the eighteenth century, denoting a "kind of riddle in which each syllable of a word, or a complete word or phrase, is enigmatically described or dramatically represented".

Connect Four (also known as Captain's Mistress, Four Up, Plot Four, Find Four, Four in a Row, Four in a Line, Drop Four, and Gravitrips (in Soviet Union)) is a two-player connection game in which the players first choose a color and then take turns dropping one colored disc from the top into a seven-column, six-row vertically suspended grid. The pieces fall straight down, occupying the lowest available space within the column. The objective of the game is to be the first to form a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal line of four of one's own discs. Connect Four is a solved game. The first player can always win by playing the right moves.
The game was first sold under the Connect Four trademark by Milton Bradley in February 1974.

Snakes and ladders is a board game for two or more players regarded today as a worldwide classic. The game originated in ancient India as Moksha Patam, and was brought to the UK in the 1890s. It is played on a game board with numbered, gridded squares. A number of "ladders" and "snakes" are pictured on the board, each connecting two specific board squares. The object of the game is to navigate one's game piece, according to die rolls, from the start to the finish, helped by climbing ladders but hindered by falling down snakes.

Hangman is a guessing game for two or more players. One player thinks of a word, phrase or sentence and the other(s) tries to guess it by suggesting letters within a certain number of guesses. Originally a Paper-and-pencil game, there are now electronic versions.

Go Fish or Fish is a card game usually played by two to five players, although it can be played with up to 10 players. It can be played in about 5 to 15 minutes.
Five cards are dealt from a standard 52-card deck to each player, or seven cards if there are three or fewer players. The remaining cards are shared between the players, usually spread out in a disorderly pile referred to as the "ocean" or "pool".The player whose turn it is to play asks another player for his or her cards of a particular face value. For example, Alice may ask, "Bob, do you have any threes?" Alice must have at least one card of the rank she requested. Bob must hand over all cards of that rank if possible. If he has none, Bob tells Alice to "go fish" (or just simply "fish"), and Alice draws a card from the pool and places it in her own hand. Then it is the next player's turn – unless the card Alice drew is the card she asked for, in which case she shows it to the other players, and she gets another turn. When any player at any time has all four cards of one face value, it forms a book, and the cards must be placed face up in front of that player.

Tag (also called it, tig, tiggy, tips, tick, chasey or touch and go) is a playground game involving two or more players' chasing other players in an attempt to "tag" and mark them out of play, usually by touching with a hand. There are many variations; most forms have no teams, scores, or equipment. Usually when a person is tagged, the tagger says, "Tag, you're 'it'!". The last one tagged during tag is "it" for the next round.Players (two or more) decide who is going to be "it", often using a counting-out game such as eeny, meeny, miny, moe. The player selected to be "it" then chases the others, attempting to get close enough to "tag" one of them (touching them with a hand) while the others try to escape. A tag makes the tagged player "it". In some variations, the previous "it" is no longer "it" and the game can continue indefinitely, while in others, both players remain "it" and the game ends when all players have become "it".

This is a list of video games that have the sport of ice hockey as their subject.

Pro Evolution Soccer, often abbreviated as PES and also known as World Soccer: Winning Eleven 5 in Japan, is a football sports simulation video game released in 2001. It is the first installment of Konami's Pro Evolution Soccer series.World Soccer: Winning Eleven 5 Final Evolution was also released in Japan after the release of Pro Evolution Soccer in Europe. PES was succeeded by Pro Evolution Soccer 2, which was released in 2002.In the English version of the game, Chris James and Terry Butcher provide commentary on the matches, while in the Japanese version the commentators are Jon Kabira and Katsuyoshi Shinto.Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating in the 0–100 range, calculated an average score of 93 out of 100 ("Universal acclaim/Must-Play") for the PlayStation 2 version. Japanese gaming magazine Famicom Tsūshin scored both the original and J.League versions a score of 34 out of 40 (85 out of 100 for online version), while the Final Evolution version received a lower score (33 out of 40 printed, 83 out of 100 online), all on the same console version.

Tic-tac-toe, noughts and crosses, or Xs and Os is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with X or O. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row is the winner. It is a solved game, with a forced draw assuming best play from both players.

This is a list ofvolleyball video games.

Beer pong, also known asBeirut, is a drinking game in which players throw a ping pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer on the other end. The game typically consists of opposing teams of two or more players per side with 6 or 10 cups set up in a triangle formation on each side. Each team then takes turns attempting to shoot ping pong balls into the opponent's cups. If a ball lands in a cup (known as a 'make'), the contents of that cup are consumed by the other team and the cup is removed from the table. The first team to eliminate all of the opponent's cups is the winner.Beer pong is played at parties, bars, colleges/universities and other venues such as tailgating at sporting events.

With COM2US Tennis, you can become the next champion. As you advance in these matches, your opponents become tougher to beat. Let's see if you have what it......

Truth or dare? is a mostly verbal party game requiring two or more players. Players are given the choice between answering a question truthfully, or performing a "double dare," both of which are played by both players. The game is particularly popular among adolescents and children, and is sometimes used as a forfeit when gambling.One version of the game involves the group preparing written slips of "truth" questions and "dares," which are folded over and put into two piles. The youngest player becomes the "questioner" and chooses an "answerer," who must decide between "truth" and "dare." The questioner then selects a random slip from that pile and reads it out - either asking the answerer a question or requiring that they perform a daring forfeit. You can always skip three times.

The Even Stevens Movie is a 2003 American Disney Channel Original Movie that is based on the Disney Channel Original Series Even Stevens. It premiered on June 13, 2003, serving as the series finale. The movie drew an audience of 5.1 million viewers.A mysterious man sorts through pictures of random families on a computer until he chooses the Stevens family. Meanwhile, Louis Stevens interrupts his older sister Ren's junior high graduation with a remote-controlled beachball meant to be full of confetti, unaware that his sidekick Beans has filled it with spaghetti, which spills on the school's gym teacher Coach Tugnut as the beachball explodes. The next day, Ren's aloof boyfriend Gil breaks up with her after taking a summer camp counselor job in Maine. She takes a job babysitting Beans get her mind off of him. After Ren and Louis get into a fight involving both the graduation and Louis' newest contraption (a modified lounge chair entitled the "Ultra Lounge-matic Super Chair") and accidentally hurt the mysterious man from the beginning, who introduces himself as Miles McDermott, he talks the Stevens family and Beans into going on a vacation, which is secretly the set of a new reality TV show called Family Fakeout. It is set on the fictional island of Mandelino, which in reality is Catalona, only a short distance off the California coast. Miles expresses resentment after he was fired from another, more popular reality show called Gotcha!.

Bandit is a 2022 Canadian biographical crime film directed by Allan Ungar and starring Josh Duhamel, Elisha Cuthbert, Nestor Carbonell and Mel Gibson. The film is based on the true life story of Gilbert Galvan Jr, who still holds a record for the most consecutive robberies in Canadian history. The screenplay by Kraig Wenman is largely based on interviews and accounts featured in the 1996 true crime book The Flying Bandit by Robert Knuckle with Ed Arnold.

A war-hardened Crusader and his Moorish commander mount an audacious revolt against the corrupt English crown.

2018 American action-adventure film directed by Otto Bathurst

Benjamin Barry is an advertising executive and ladies' man who, to win a big campaign, bets that he can make a woman fall in love with him in 10 days.

A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape Earth and return to his home world.

Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance; 'Rosebud'.

1941 American drama film directed by Orson Welles

The eccentrically macabre family moves to a bland suburb where Wednesday Addams' friendship with the daughter of a hostile and conformist local reality show host exacerbates conflict between the families.

2019 film directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan

To save Earth from an alien probe, Admiral James T. Kirk and his fugitive crew go back in time to San Francisco in 1986 to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it: humpback whales.

1986 US science fiction film directed by Leonard Nimoy

A father who can't keep his promises dies in a car accident. One year later, he returns as a snowman who has the final chance to put things right with his son before he is gone forever.

Harry and Sally have known each other for years, and are very good friends, but they fear sex would ruin the friendship.

When a man inadvertently makes Santa fall off of his roof on Christmas Eve, he finds himself magically recruited to take his place.

A miserable conman and his partner pose as Santa and his Little Helper to rob department stores on Christmas Eve. But they run into problems when the conman befriends a troubled kid.

An Israeli Special Forces Soldier fakes his death so he can re-emerge in New York City as a hair stylist.

A trio of guys try and make up for missed opportunities in childhood by forming a three-player baseball team to compete against standard children's Little League squads.

A married couple tries to steal back a valuable heirloom from a troublesome kid.

Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (also known as Home Alone 5) is a 2012 American made-for-television Christmas comedy film. It is the fifth installment in the Home Alone franchise. It stars Christian Martyn, Jodelle Ferland, Malcolm McDowell, Debi Mazar, Eddie Steeples. The film premiered on ABC Family (now Freeform) on November 25, 2012, during the network's annual Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas programming block. It is the second film, after Home Alone 3, not to focus on the McCallister family, although there are numerous homages to the previous films. It is the only film in the series not to be set in Chicago.The Baxter family move from California to Maine and settle into their new house during the Christmas season. 10-year-old Finn Baxter (Christian Martyn) and his older sister Alexis (Jodelle Ferland) are technophiles who isolate themselves from their parents Curtis (Doug Murray) and Catherine (Ellie Harvie) and the outside world. Finn is often playing video games and Alexis is often on her phone. Encouraged by his dad to socialize, Finn befriends his neighbor Mason (Peter DaCunha) who informs him about the legend of a smothered gangster whose ghost haunts the Baxters' new home, leaving Finn paranoid.

An evil high-fashion designer plots to steal Dalmatian puppies in order to make an extravagant fur coat, but instead creates an extravagant mess.

1996 Walt Disney Pictures film directed by Stephen Herek

An FBI agent reprises his disguise as a corpulent old lady and takes a job as a nanny in a crime suspect's house.

Alex Pruitt, an 8-year-old boy living in Chicago, must fend off international spies who seek a top-secret computer chip in his toy car.

1997 American family comedy film directed by Raja Gosnell

A self-centered Minnesota lawyer is sentenced to community service coaching a rag tag youth hockey team.

1992 ice hockey film directed by Stephen Herek

Canadian musician, singer, record producer and visual artist

American singer, songwriter, record producer, multi-instrumentalist, and dancer

A group of ambitious law students and their brilliant criminal defense professor become involved in a twisted murder plot that promises to change the course of their lives.

2014 American legal drama television series

A political drama which looks into the life of the Secretary of State as she tries to balance work with family.

2014 American political drama television series

The city's most highly skilled medical team saves lives, while navigating their unique interpersonal relationships.

A New York firefighter relocates to Austin, Texas with his son, where he works to save people's lives while trying to solve his own personal problems.

American procedural drama television series and spin-off of 9-1-1

A look into the daily (or rather, nightly) lives of three vampires, who've lived together for over 100 years, on Staten Island.

Amanda, an ardent Jane Austen fan, lives in present day London with her boyfriend Michael, until she finds she's swapped places with Austen's fictional creation Elizabeth Bennet.

Foundling Heathcliff is raised by the wealthy Earnshaws in Yorkshire but in later life launches a vendetta against the family.

When an old enemy, the Cylons, resurface and obliterate the 12 colonies, the crew of the aged Galactica protect a small civilian fleet - the last of humanity - as they journey toward the fabled 13th colony, Earth.

Young bankers and traders make their way in the financial world in the aftermath of the 2008 collapse.

US police chief Bill Hixon lands in Lincolnshire with his 14 year-old daughter Kelsey, hoping to flee their recent painful past. New community forces Bill to question everything about himself.

In the 1890s, William Murdoch uses radical forensic techniques for the time, including fingerprinting and trace evidence, to solve some of the city's most gruesome murders.

A modern take on the cases of Sherlock Holmes, with the detective now living in New York City.

Diana Bishop, historian and witch, accesses Ashmole 782 and knows she must solve its mysteries. She is offered help by the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont, but he's a vampire and witches should never trust vampires.

A suspended lawyer is forced to enroll in a community college with an eccentric staff and student body.

American comedy television series created by Dan Harmon

Follows Leonardo Da Vinci during his early days in Florence, as a young artist, inventor and dreamer, trying to change the future.

In 1897 Transylvania, the blood-drinking Count draws his plans against Victorian London.

Based on the Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St. Aubyn, the series depicts how the son of an aristocratic family seeks redemption and recovery.

A teenage boy with a sex therapist mother teams up with a high school classmate to set up an underground sex therapy clinic at school.

War veteran turned private detective Cormoran Strike solves brutal murders with the help of his trusted assistant Robin Ellacott.

Comedy series following the exploits of Det. Jake Peralta and his diverse, lovable colleagues as they police the NYPD's 99th Precinct.

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