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Harini Sen

Vastralaya

In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital as renowned for its famous clientele--Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, and Ray Charles--as for its progressive methods of treating those who could afford its sanctuary. Kaysen's memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers. It is a brilliant evocation of a "parallel universe" set within the kaleidoscopically shifting landscape of the late sixties. Girl, Interrupted is a clear-sighted, unflinching documnet that gives lasting and specific dimension to our definitions of sane and insane, mental illness and recovery.

The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices-but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep. J.D. Salinger's classic novel of teenage angst and rebellion was first published in 1951. The novel was included on Time's 2005 list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923. It was named by Modern Library and its readers as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. It has been frequently challenged in the court for its liberal use of profanity and portrayal of sexuality and in the 1950's and 60's it was the novel that every teenage boy wants to read.

Who is the real Margo?Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends, and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they're for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew...

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step.Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't. (jacket flap)

"I walk around the school hallways and look at the people. I look at the teachers and wonder why they're here. Not in a mean way. In a curious way. It's like looking at all the students and wondering who's had their heart broken that day...or wondering who did the heart breaking and wondering why."Charlie is a freshman. And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it. Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But Charlie can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

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.

Maybe it was a grandparent, or a teacher or a colleague. Someone older, patient and wise, who understood you when you were young and searching, and gave you sound advice to help you make your way through it. For Mitch Albom, that person was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly twenty years ago.Maybe, like Mitch, you lost track of this mentor as you made your way, and the insights faded. Wouldn't you like to see that person again, ask the bigger questions that still haunt you? Mitch Albom had that second chance. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying of ALS - or motor neurone disease - Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final 'class': lessons in how to live.

Pamela Beryl Harriman, also known as Pamela Churchill Harriman, was an English-born American political activist for the Democratic Party, diplomat, and socialite. She married three times, her first husband was Randolph Churchill, the son of prime minister Winston Churchill, Her third husband was W. Averell Harriman, an American diplomat who also served as Governor of New York. Her only child, Winston Churchill, was named after his famous grandfather. She served as US ambassador to France from 1993 to 1997.

What's the most effective path to success in any domain? It's not what you think. \
  \
Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you'll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world's top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule.David Epstein examined the world's most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters and scientists. He discovered that in most fields--especially those that are complex and unpredictable--generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They're also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can't see.Provocative, rigorous, and engrossing, Range makes a compelling case for actively cultivating inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.

"Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole."As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status--much like their grandparents before them.In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community--and all of us--to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.

nonfiction book about mass incarceration in the United States by Michelle Alexander

The celebrated author of A Spy Among Friends and Rogue Heroes returns with his greatest spy story yet, a thrilling Cold War-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the collapse of the Soviet Union.If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation's communism as both criminal and philistine. He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union's top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States's nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky's name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain's obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.  Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky's nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre's latest may be his best yet. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, it brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man's hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations.

A grand mystery reaching back centuries. A sensational disappearance that made headlines around the world. A quest for truth that leads to death, madness or disappearance for those who seek to solve it. The Lost City of Z is a blockbuster adventure narrative about what lies beneath the impenetrable jungle canopy of the Amazon.After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, New Yorker writer David Grann set out to solve "the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th century": What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett &amp; his quest for the Lost City of Z?In 1925, Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, hoping to make one of the most important discoveries in history. For centuries Europeans believed the world's largest jungle concealed the glittering kingdom of El Dorado. Thousands had died looking for it, leaving many scientists convinced that the Amazon was truly inimical to humans. But Fawcett, whose daring expeditions inspired Conan Doyle's The Lost World, had spent years building his scientific case. Captivating the imagination of millions round the globe, Fawcett embarked with his 21-year-old son, determined to prove that this ancient civilisation--which he dubbed Z--existed. Then his expedition vanished. Fawcett's fate, &amp; the tantalizing clues he left behind about Z, became an obsession for hundreds who followed him into the uncharted wilderness. For decades scientists &amp; adventurers have searched for evidence of Fawcett's party &amp; the lost City of Z. Countless have perished, been captured by tribes or gone mad. As Grann delved ever deeper into the mystery surrounding Fawcett's quest, &amp; the greater mystery of what lies within the Amazon, he found himself, like the generations who preceded him, being irresistibly drawn into the jungle's green hell. His quest for the truth &amp; discoveries about Fawcett's fate &amp; Z form the heart of this complexly enthralling narrative.

The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED, begun in 1857, was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, discovered that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. When the committee insisted on honoring him, a shocking truth came to light: Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.

A brilliant satire of mass culture and the numbing effects of technology, White Noise tells the story of Jack Gladney, a teacher of Hitler studies at a liberal arts college in Middle America. Jack and his fourth wife, Babette, bound by their love, fear of death, and four ultramodern offspring, navigate the rocky passages of family life to the background babble of brand-name consumerism. Then a lethal black chemical cloud, unleashed by an industrial accident, floats over their lives, an "airborne toxic event" that is a more urgent and visible version of the white noise engulfing the Gladneys—the radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, and TV murmurings that constitute the music of American magic and dread.

An economist's version of The Way Things Work, this engaging volume is part field guide to economics and part expose of the economic principles lurking behind daily events, explaining everything from traffic jams to high coffee prices. The Undercover Economist is for anyone who's wondered why the gap between rich and poor nations is so great, or why they can't seem to find a decent second-hand car, or how to outwit Starbucks. This book offers the hidden story behind these and other questions, as economist Tim Harford ranges from Africa, Asia, Europe, and of course the United States to reveal how supermarkets, airlines, and coffee chains--to name just a few--are vacuuming money from our wallets. Harford punctures the myths surrounding some of today's biggest controversies, including the high cost of health-care; he reveals why certain environmental laws can put a smile on a landlord's face; and he explains why some industries can have high profits for innocent reasons, while in other industries something sinister is going on. Covering an array of economic concepts including scarce resources, market power, efficiency, price gouging, market failure, inside information, and game theory, Harford sheds light on how these forces shape our day-to-day lives, often without our knowing it.  Showing us the world through the eyes of an economist, Tim Harford reveals that everyday events are intricate games of negotiations, contests of strength, and battles of wits. Written with a light touch and sly wit, The Undercover Economist turns "the dismal science" into a true delight.

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter—environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, total family man—she was doing her small part to build a better world.But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outré rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become "a very different kind of neighbor," an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.(jacket)

 Author Q&amp;A with Tim Harford  [image]  So are you an economic missionary, or is this just something that you love to do? It began as something that I love to do--and I think I am now starting to get a sense of it being a mission. People can use economics and they can use statistics and numbers to get at the truth and there is a real appetite for doing so. This is such a BBC thing to say--there’s almost a public service mission to be fulfilled in educating people about economics. When I wrote The Undercover Economist, it was all about my pure enthusiasm for the subject; the book is full of stuff I wanted to say and that is always the thing with the books: they are always such fun to write. Do you think that people these days are generally more economically literate?  People are now aware of economics for various reasons. There are the problems with the economy--there is always more interest in economics when it is all going wrong.  Where is the border line in your new book between economics and sociology?  I don’t draw a border line, and particularly not with the new book. The Undercover Economist was basically all the cool economics I could think of and The Logic of Life was me investigating a particular part of economics. All of the references in The Logic of Life were academic economics papers that I had related--and hopefully made more fun. This new book, Adapt, is very different. I have started by asking what is wrong with the world, what needs fixing, how does it work--and if economics can tell us something about that (which it can) then I have used it. And if economics is not the tool that you need--if you need to turn to sociology or engineering or biology or psychology--I have, in fact, turned to all of them in this book. If that’s what you need, then that’s where I have gone. So I have written this book in a different way: I started with a problem and tried to figure out how to solve it.  What specific subjects do you tackle? To be a bit more specific, the book is about how difficult problems get solved and I look at quick change; the banking crisis; poverty; innovation, as I think there is an innovation slow-down; and the war in Iraq. Also, I look at both problems in business and in everyday life. Those are the big problems that I look at--and my conclusion is that these sorts of problems only ever get solved by trial and error, so when they are being solved, they are being solved through experimentation, which is often a bottom-up process. When they are not being solved it is because we are not willing to experiment, or to use trial and error.  Do you think companies will change to be much more experimental, with more decisions placed in the hands of employees? I don’t think that is necessarily a trend, and the reason is that the market itself is highly experimental, so if your company isn’t experimental it may just happen to have a really great, successful idea--and that’s fine; if it doesn’t, it will go bankrupt. But that said, it is very interesting to look at the range of companies who have got very into experimentation--they range from the key-cutting chain Timpson’s to Google; you can’t get more different than those two firms, but actually the language is very similar; the recruitment policies are similar; the way the employees get paid is similar.  The “strap line” of the book is that “Success always starts with failure.” You are a successful author… so what was the failure that set you up for success?  I was working on a book before The Undercover Economist… it was going to be a sort of Adrian Mole/Bridget Jones’ Diary-styled fictional comedy, in which the hero was this economist and through the hilarious things that happened to him, all these economic principles would be explained--which is a great idea--but the trouble is that I am not actually funny. Another example would be my first job as a management consultant… and I was a terrible management consultant. I crashed out after a few months. Much better that, than to stick with the job for two or three years-- a lot of people say you have got to do that to “show your commitment.” Taking the job was a mistake--why would I need to show my commitment to a mistake? Better to realise you made a mistake, stop and do something else, which I did.  That idea that “failure breeds success” is central to most entrepreneurs. Do you think we need more of it in the UK? I think that the real problem is not failure rates in business; the problem is failure rates in politics. We need a much higher failure rate in politics. What actually happens is politicians--and this is true of all political parties--have got some project and they’ll say, “Right, we are going to do this thing,” and it is quite likely that idea is a bad idea--because most ideas fail; the world is complicated and while I don’t have the numbers for this, most ideas are, as it turns out, not good ideas.  But they never collect the data, or whatever it is they need to measure, to find out where their idea is failing. So they have this bad idea, roll this bad idea out and the bad idea sticks, costs the country hundreds, millions, or billions of pounds, and then the bad idea is finally reversed by the next party on purely ideological grounds and you never find out whether it really worked or not. So we have this very, very low willingness to collect the data that would be necessary to demonstrate failure, which is the bit we actually need.  To give a brief example: Ken Livingstone, as Mayor of London, came along and introduced these long, bendy buses. Boris Johnson came along and said, “If you elect me, I am going to get rid of those big bendy buses and replace them with double-decker buses.” He was elected and he did it, so… which one of them is right? I don’t know. I mean, isn’t that crazy? I know democracy is a wonderful thing and we voted for Ken Livingstone and we voted for Boris Johnson, but it would be nice to actually have the data on passenger injury rates, how quickly people can get on and off these buses, whether disabled people are using these buses… the sort of basic evidence you would want to collect.  Based on that, are you a supporter of David Cameron’s “Big Society”, which in a sense favours local experimentation over central government planning?  Well, I have some sympathy for the idea of local experimentation, but what worries me is that we have to have some mechanism that is going to tell you what is working and what is not--and there is no proposal for that. Cameron’s Tories seem to have the view that ‘if it is local then it will work.’ In my book, I have all kinds of interesting case studies of situations where localism really would have worked incredibly well, as in, say, the US Army in Iraq. But I have also got examples of where localism did not work well at all--such as a corruption-fighting drive in Indonesia.  Is the new book, Adapt, your movement away from economic rationalist to management guru? Are you going to cast your eye over bigger problems? The two changes in Adapt are that I have tried to start with the problem, rather than saying, “I have got a hammer--I’m going to look for a nail.” I started with a nail and said, “Ok, look, I need to get this hammered in.” So I have started with the problem and then looked anywhere for solutions. And the second thing is that I have tried to do is write with more of a narrative. This is not a Malcolm Gladwell book, but I really admire the way that people like Gladwell get quite complex ideas across because they get you interested in the story; that is something that I have tried to do more of here. I am not too worried about it, because I know that I am never going to turn into Malcolm Gladwell--I am always going to be Tim Harford--but it doesn’t hurt to nudge in a certain direction.  On Amazon, we recommend new book ideas to people: “If you like Tim Harford you may like…”, but what does Tim Harford also like? I read a lot of books, mostly non-fiction and in two categories: people who I think write a lot better than I do, and people who think about economics more deeply than I do. In the first category I am reading people like Michael Lewis, Kathryn Schulz (I loved her first book, Being Wrong), Malcolm Gladwell and Alain de Botton. In the second category, I read lots of technical economics books, but I enjoy Steven Landsburg, Edward Glaeser (who has a book out now which looks good), Bill Easterly… I don’t necessarily agree with all of these people!  When I am not reading non-fiction, I am reading comic books or 1980s fantasy authors like Jack Vance.  

In this candid and gripping account, President George W. Bush describes the critical decisions that shaped his presidency and personal life.George W. Bush served as president of the United States during eight of the most consequential years in American history. The decisions that reached his desk impacted people around the world and defined the times in which we live.Decision Points brings readers inside the Texas governor’s mansion on the night of the 2000 election, aboard Air Force One during the harrowing hours after the attacks of September 11, 2001, into the Situation Room moments before the start of the war in Iraq, and behind the scenes at the White House for many other historic presidential decisions.For the first time, we learn President Bush’s perspective and insights on:His decision to quit drinking and the journey that led him to his Christian faithThe selection of the vice president, secretary of defense, secretary of state, Supreme Court justices, and other key officialsHis relationships with his wife, daughters, and parents, including heartfelt letters between the president and his father on the eve of the Iraq WarHis administration’s counterterrorism programs, including the CIA’s enhanced interrogations and the Terrorist Surveillance ProgramWhy the worst moment of the presidency was hearing accusations that race played a role in the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and a critical assessment of what he would have done differently during the crisisHis deep concern that Iraq could turn into a defeat costlier than Vietnam, and how he decided to defy public opinion by ordering the troop surgeHis legislative achievements, including tax cuts and reforming education and Medicare, as well as his setbacks, including Social Security and immigration reformThe relationships he forged with other world leaders, including an honest assessment of those he did and didn’t trustWhy the failure to bring Osama bin Laden to justice ranks as his biggest disappointment and why his success in denying the terrorists their fondest wish—attacking America again—is among his proudest achievementsA groundbreaking new brand of presidential memoir, Decision Points will captivate supporters, surprise critics, and change perspectives on eight remarkable years in American history—and on the man at the center of events.

America is in disarray and our economy is failing us. We have been through the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, unemployment remains stubbornly high, and talk of a double-dip recession persists. Americans are not pulling the world economy out of its sluggish state -- if anything we are looking to Asia to drive a recovery. Median wages have risen only slowly since the 1970s, and this multi-decade stagnation is not yet over. By contrast, the living standards of earlier generations would double every few decades. The Democratic Party seeks to expand government spending even when the middle class feels squeezed, the public sector doesn't always perform well, and we have no good plan for paying for forthcoming entitlement spending. To the extent Republicans have a consistent platform, it consists of unrealistic claims about how tax cuts will raise revenue and stimulate economic growth. The Republicans, when they hold power, are often a bigger fiscal disaster than the Democrats. How did we get into this mess? Imagine a tropical island where the citrus and bananas hang from the trees. Low-hanging literal fruit -- you don't even have to cook the stuff. In a figurative sense, the American economy has enjoyed lots of low-hanging fruit since at least the seventeenth century: free land; immigrant labor; and powerful new technologies. Yet during the last forty years, that low-hanging fruit started disappearing and we started pretending it was still there. We have failed to recognize that we are at a technological plateau and the trees are barer than we would like to think. That's it. That is what has gone wrong. The problem won't be solved overnight, but there are reasons to be optimistic. We simply have to recognize the underlying causes of our past prosperity-low hanging fruit-and how we will come upon more of it.

Chess is a board game between two players. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess). The current form of the game emerged in Spain and the rest of Southern Europe during the second half of the 15th century after evolving from chaturanga, a similar but much older game of Indian origin. Today, chess is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide.Chess is an abstract strategy game and involves no hidden information. It is played on a chessboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. At the start, each player controls sixteen pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. The player controlling the white pieces moves first, followed by the player controlling the black pieces. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king, whereby the king is under immediate attack (in "check") and there is no way for it to escape. There are also several ways a game can end in a draw.

Wear the suit of the ultimate assassin, you have the ability to blend into plain sight, kill with your bare hands and fashion a weapon from almost anything. You...

The Mushroom Kingdom just got a whole lot more hectic as Mario and friends double up for furious kart racing. This time around, each kart holds two racers that...

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Super Mario Bros. 2 is a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was first released in North America in October 1988, and in the PAL region in 1989.

Space Invaders(Japanese:スペースインベーダー,Hepburn:Supēsu Inbēdā)is a 1978 arcade game created by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Within the shooter genre,Space Invaderswas the first fixed shooter and set the template for the shoot 'em up genre. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser to earn as many points as possible.Space Invaderswas an immediate commercial success; by 1982, it had grossed $3.8 billion, with a net profit of $450 million, making it the best-selling video game and highest-grossing "entertainment product" at the time. Adjusted for inflation, the many versions of the game are estimated to have grossed over $13 billion in total revenue as of 2016, making it the highest-grossing video game of all time.

WarioWare: Smooth Movesis a party video game developed by Nintendo SPD and Intelligent Systems. The game was published by Nintendo for its Wii video game system in Japan in December 2006, and in Europe, North America, and Australia in January 2007. It was re-released in 2011 in Europe as part of the Nintendo Selects program. It is the fifth game in theWarioWareseries of games, and the only game in the series to be released for the Wii (not including WarioWare D.I.Y. Showcase, another WarioWare game for the Wii) . Like its predecessors,WarioWare: Smooth Movesis built around a collection of microgames that last about five seconds each, and which require that the player hold the Wii Remote in specific positions. The game offers the microgames to the player in rapid succession, by first instructing the player to hold the Wii Remote in a specific manner, and then showing them the microgame. The microgames are divided into several stages, each of which loosely connects the microgames with the help of a story.

One day, the Mushroom Kingdom was invaded by the Koopas, a tribe of turtles famous for their black magic. The quiet, peace-loving Mushroom People were turned in...

Donkey Kong is a 1981 arcade video game developed and published by Nintendo. As Mario, the player runs and jumps on platforms and climbs ladders to ascend a construction site and rescue Pauline from the titular giant gorilla. It is the first game in the Donkey Kong series as well as Mario's first appearance in a video game.

Namco's world famous arcade game returns! Avoid the ghosts while munching on the dots!...

The newest chapter of the Paper Mario story isn't just out of this world ... it's out of this dimension. What at first glance appears to be a 2-D sidescroller r...

Mario Kart Wii comes with the intuitive Wii Wheel, which makes it easy for novices to compete against veterans, so no one is left in the dust. And with a broadb...

[Metacritic's 2007 Wii Game of the Year] The ultimate Nintendo hero is taking the ultimate step ... out into space. Join Mario as he ushers in a new era of vide...

Super Mario Galaxy 2, the sequel to the galaxy-hopping original game, includes the gravity-defying, physics-based exploration from the first game, but is loaded...

In Monument Valley you will manipulate impossible architecture and guide a silent princess through a beautiful world. Monument Valley is a surreal exploration t...

Take Yoshi on an adventure to remember in Yoshi Land for Nintendo Wii U. Enjoy dual-screen control thanks to the Wii U Touchscreen GamePad, while you'll also be...

The first new 2D Mario platformer since Super Mario World has arrived. Boasting "incredible" 3D graphics to accompany classic 2D gameplay, this fast-paced adven...

Work together with your friends or compete for the crown in the first multiplayer 3D Mario game for the Wii U console. In the Super Mario 3D World game, player...

New Super Mario Bros. Wii offers a combination of cooperation and competition. Players can pick each other up to save them from danger or toss them into it. Mar...

When his family goes away for the summer, a hitherto faithful husband with an overactive imagination is tempted by a beautiful neighbbor.

1955 romantic comedy movie directed by Billy Wilder

The life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was insanely jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.

The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

A rich businessman's assumption that his new colleague is gay leads him to ask the man to keep an eye on his mistress. However, the man is not gay, and begins to fall for the woman himself.

1999 American-Australian film by Damon Santostefano

Ballet Shoes is a 2007 British television film, adapted by Heidi Thomas from Noel Streatfeild's 1936 novel Ballet Shoes. It was produced by Granada Productions and premiered on BBC One on 26 December 2007. It is directed by Sandra Goldbacher.

Dear Dumb Diary is a Hallmark Channel television film based on the book series of the same name by Jim Benton. It stars Emily Alyn Lind as Jamie Kelly, a seventh-grader who documents her experiences at Mackerel Middle School in her diary, as well as Mary-Charles Jones as her best friend Isabella and Sterling Griffith as popular girl Angeline. The film first aired on the Hallmark Channel on September 6, 2013.

Samantha: An American Girl Holiday is a 2004 television film, based on the American Girl children's books written by Susan S. Adler and Valerie Tripp. The film follows young, wealthy Samantha Parkington's adventures with three poor orphan girls. Shot in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the 86-minute film features lavish period costumes and settings, and was nominated for three Young Artist Awards, winning one.Samantha is the first in the series of An American Girl films.Samantha and Nellie become fast friends. The girls turn to each other in happiness and sorrow, adventure and danger, and grow as close as sisters.It is then learned that Nellie's mother died last fall and that Samantha is an orphan as her parents died in an accident by the river. One of the mementos she has of them is a locket with their pictures. Shortly, Samantha's Uncle Gardner, who is settled in New York, pays a visit home with his fiancé Cornelia. Uncle 
Gard announces that he and Cornelia are engaged. Samantha is unhappy by this turn of events but agrees to be the bridesmaid for the wedding. Soon after, Samantha moves to New York to attend a new school.

A third installment of the 'Now You See Me' franchise. Plot undisclosed.

Julie Davis writes bestselling children's books about unlocking your fears, but has yet to unlock her own. When her daughter is born, that trauma is brought to the fore, and with it, a crushing battle to survive.

Spanning three decades of love, betrayal, decadence, revenge, and ultimately murder, we see what a name means, what it's worth, and how far a family will go for control.

A widower finds out the woman he fell in love with is his brother's girlfriend.

The relationships of two couples become complicated and deceitful when the man from one couple meets the woman of the other.

In a near future, a lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with an operating system designed to meet his every need.

When both he and a colleague are about to lose their job, Walter takes action by embarking on an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.

A chance encounter between a down-and-out music-business executive and a young singer-songwriter, new to Manhattan, turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents.

A psychiatrist searches the globe to find the secret of happiness.

Two aimless middle-aged losers still living at home are forced against their will to become roommates when their parents marry.

Hailee Steinfeld (born December 11, 1996) is an American actress, singer and model. She earned many accolades for her breakthrough role as Mattie Ross in the drama western film True Grit (2010), for which she was nominated for BAFTA Award for Best Actress as well as Screen Actors Guild Award and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, making her the ninth youngest nominee in category. Steinfeld gained further prominence for her lead roles in Ender's Game (2013), Romeo & Juliet (2013), Begin Again (2013), and 3 Days to Kill (2014). She starred as Emily Junk in the Pitch Perfect film series (2015–2017) and as Nadine Franklin in The Edge of Seventeen (2016), the latter of which earned her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. In 2018, Steinfeld voiced the starring role of Gwen Stacy / Spider-Woman in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and starred as Charlie Watson in the action film Bumblebee, contributing to the latter's soundtrack. Since 2019, she has starred as Emily Dickinson in the Apple TV+ comedy-drama series Dickinson. Steinfeld will also portray Kate Bishop / Hawkeye in the Disney+ Marvel Cinematic Universe series Hawkeye.

American singer, songwriter, and record producer

The Lincoln Lawyer is an American legal drama streaming television series created for television by David E. Kelley and developed by Ted Humphrey, based on the 2008 novel The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly, a sequel to his novel The Lincoln Lawyer. It stars Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller, a defense attorney in Los Angeles who works out of a chauffeur-driven Lincoln Navigator rather than an office. Neve Campbell, Becki Newton, Jazz Raycole, Angus Sampson, and Christopher Gorham also star.It premiered on Netflix on May 13, 2022. It received generally positive reviews from critics. In June 2022, the series was renewed for a second season which has been reported to be based upon Connelly's 2011 novel, The Fifth Witness (the fourth book in The Lincoln Lawyer series of books); it is expected to be available to stream in 2023.

A Private Affair is a Spanish period drama streaming television series from Bambú Producciones with Teresa Fernández-Valdés as showrunner. Set in Galicia in the 1940s, it is an eight-part murder mystery comedy drama starring Aura Garrido and Jean Reno.

TV series follows the robbery of Colombia's central bank in October 1994 when a thieves made off with $33million.

Lumen Industries, a company that's looking to take work-life balance to a new level.

TV series that chronicles Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes' attempt to revolutionize the healthcare industry after dropping out of college and starting a technology company.

Follows some players in the 80s technological revolution that lead to information society.

A writer tries to juggle his career, his relationship with his daughter and his ex-girlfriend, as well as his appetite for beautiful women.

15 year old Amy ends up pregnant after one night at band camp, throwing her whole life upside down. It doesn't help that she's now going to school with that guy.

A follow-up to the blockbuster movie of the same name, following the rich teenager Cher and her friends as they attend high school in Beverly Hills.

A woman, who quit being an attorney at her father's law firm to become a mediator, copes after her father's death.

Based on the same-named hit movie from 1999 that starred Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles, this half-hour series returns to Padua High, where newcomers Kat and Bianca Stratford attempt to navigate the popular crowd.

A look at the lives of Nico, Wendy, and Victory -- three of "New York's 50 Most Powerful Women," according to The New York Post.

Two young women waitressing at a greasy spoon diner strike up an unlikely friendship in the hopes of launching a successful business - if only they can raise the cash.

American sitcom created by Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings (2011-2017)

Smart but wholesome Betty embraces her unique appearance and independent attitude in the cutthroat world of New York fashion.

This series follows the Special Victims Unit, a specially trained squad of detectives in the N.Y.P.D., who investigate sexually related crimes.

American police procedural crime drama television series

A group of friends living in Beverly Hills, California make their way through life from their school days into adulthood.

1990 American teen drama television series

The series takes viewers to the epicenter of America's struggle with opioid addiction, from the boardrooms of Purdue Pharma, to a distressed Virginia mining community, to the hallways of the DEA.

Four friends band together against an anonymous foe who threatens to reveal their darkest secrets, while also investigating the disappearance of their best friend.

American teen drama mystery-thriller television series.

An antisocial maverick doctor who specializes in diagnostic medicine does whatever it takes to solve puzzling cases that come his way using his crack team of doctors and his wits.

Lara W.

Capitalism: A Love Story examines the impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world). The fi

Without words, cameras show us the world, with an emphasis not on "where," but on "what's there." It begins with morning, natural landscapes and peopl

In 1985 two friends, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, set out to climb Siula Grande in Peru via the West Face, a hitherto unaccomplished feat by any climb

Born January 22, 1961, the late Daniel Johnston began expressing himself through art as a child while doctors struggled to accurately diagnose his unu

Docs that rock

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Jaype

In a castle high on top of a hill lives an inventor's greatest creation - Edward, a near-complete person. The creator died before he could finish Edwa

Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Halloween Town, is bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween. One day he stumbles into Christmas 

1993 animated film directed by Henry Selick

On the peaceful planet Druidia, King Roland attempts to marry his daughter Princess Vespa to Prince Valium, but Vespa and her loyal droid Dot Matrix e

1987 American science fiction parody movie directed by Mel Brooks

Childhood Family Movies

Chris B.

The history of sex work and sex workers' lives in cinema is a fraught one, at times caked in nasty stereotypes and revealing the most insidious points of view in society that sustain policies that marginalize those members of society. But some films, such as the ones on this list, offer insight and nuance, while unpacking ideas about women's autonomy, the marketplace of desire, and how people's identities function in capitalist societies. 

A documentary of New York's LGBT scene in the 1980s, showing the real life of poor Black and Latin LGBT people, introduce the ballrooms, the categorie

Six months after the disappearance of Tuscarora, PA businessman Tom Gruneman, his boss, Peter Cable, and his wife, Holly Gruneman, hire Tom's friend, 

Practicing the world's oldest profession in the archaeological walk of Rome's Parco di Porta Capena, the trusting, stubbornly-optimistic streetwalker 

While dealing drugs on the side, Gonda operates the Genet, a gay bar in Tokyo where he has hired a stable of transvestites to service the customers. T

1969 Japanese drama film directed by Toshio Matsumoto

Labor of Love: Sex Work on Film

TasteDive Official

It is the height of the war in Vietnam, and U.S. Army Captain Willard is sent by Colonel Lucas and a General to carry out a mission that, officially, 

1979 American war film directed by Francis Ford Coppola

On a wild and rain-swept late-November evening, somewhere at an empty stretch of road outside Ohio's merry Denton, blissfully-affianced, prudish, bori

Haunted by a persistent writer's block, the aspiring author and recovering alcoholic, Jack Torrance, drags his wife, Wendy, and his gifted son, Danny,

Paranoid Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper of Burpelson Air Force Base, believing that fluoridation of the American water supply is a Soviet plot to po

1964 British satire film directed by Stanley Kubrick

Old Classics

Emotionally charged pieces that might make you cry

In 1914, World War I, the bloodiest war ever at that time in human history, was well under way. However on Christmas Eve, numerous sections of the Wes

Using flashbacks from a statement recorded late in life and archival footage for atmosphere, this film traces Harvey Milk's career from his 40th birth

Based on a true story. After graduating from Emory University, Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire savings account to ch

24 hours in L.A.; it's raining cats and dogs. Two parallel and intercut stories dramatize men about to die: both are estranged from a grown child, bot

I'm not crying you're crying

A collection of some of the best Movie Parodies 

The sci-fi television series "Galaxy Quest", which took place aboard the intergalactic spaceship NSEA Protector, starred Jason Nesmith as suave Comman

1999 science-fiction comedy film directed by Dean Parisot

Action movie star Tugg Speedman is on the downslide of his professional career. He wants to be considered a serious actor, but his latest serious role

History is turned on its comic head when, in tenth-century England, King Arthur travels the countryside to find knights who will join him at the Round

1975 film directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones

Hilarious Parodies of Classic Movies

Movies that would be as qualified to win the award but didn't

1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino

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