Emo Nemo

Mily

Yourneighbor

Sarah

Shaidrian Rios

Jimmy Beans

Julie Wynne - videos

Kapuster

Nicky Tallon

Harini Sen

Vastralaya

Evan Shively (Perseus271)

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family's Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming.

Why?Many years from now, historians will look back on this story and wonder why it was so important. And believe me, my friends, important it was. Today, most thrillers and police procedurals gets measured against it.For this review, I will refer to TSOTL as the story, because I'm going to talk about the book, movie, facts, fiction and some of my own opinions.TSOTL was the second Dr. Hannibal Lector story. It was also the second movie adaptation - wait just a damn moment, you might be saying to me, Red Dragon was the first book but it was made after the TSOTL movie was so successful...Correct.However, there was an attempt at a screen adaptation of Red Dragon a few years before TSOTL, called MANHUNTER. It was directed by Michael Mann. To the best of my knowledge, it was a flop at the box office.There are a few things TSOTL had going for it that counted in its favor. By all means, Thomas Harris is a brilliant writer - if you've read any of the books you will know this. But most movie freaks and geeks will agree with me that the story is probably one of the best adaptations from book to screen ever.Then you look at the cast - Jody Foster managed to play a vulnerable yet strong female (IMPORTANT) lead. You know she is intelligent, yet she knows that she has no chance against the superior intellect of Dr. Hannibal Lector. In comes Anthony Hopkins, whose portrayal of the psychopathic genius is so convincing, it catapults him to one of the biggest super villains of all time, yet he is so charming that the audience can't help but like him.And, of course, Buffalo Bill is played by Ted Levine, who is utterly convincing, even if you've seen him as the cop in MONK.With a strong cast and story, this movie became an unlikely contender at the Academy Awards. And they won a few!Right, lets take a step back, to the research phase of this story.Thomas Harris, in the early 80's, were doing research and was fortunate enough to get involved with criminal profiling, which at that time had been an unproven and highly speculative science. It was during the time when they were on the trail of one Ted Bundy. If you know a bit about this famous serial killer, you will probably know that he used to fake injuries by wearing a cast and asking victims for their help -  Do you remember how Buffalo Bill got that girl in the back of the van? And while Bundy was incarcerated on death row, he was willing to help the police do a profile on another serial killer of the time, The Green River Killer. I believe Bundy told them not to remove a body when they discover it, because the killer will go back to his treasure - something that was later confirmed to have happened.  Remember that agent Sterling asked Dr. Lector for his help? And then there was the killer Ed Gein, many decades before, who robbed graves and ultimately killed people to make himself a female skin, which was apparently hard to sow without tearing.  Need I explain this one? The fact of the matter is, while some things may have seemed preposterous to us in the early eighties, like they could only happen in the movies, there were some truly messed up people out there who were doing some truly messed up things - wow, it's been a while since I've kept a sentence PG like that...I will accept your applause humbly.Also, there was and, unfortunately, still are some stereo types about women in the FBI. Harris took the opportunity to make a statement, maybe very subtly, but still very important, about power vs. emotion. At no time does this story feel like a Hollywood blockbuster, where the star is cocky and always has a way out of a sticky situation, where it's all guns and fire and explosions, etc. No, this story was meant to cut close to home, to show the possibilities, for we are all vulnerable in this world. Agent Clarice is scared, she fears for her life, she doesn't know if she will survive, but she fights the big, bad (Goliath) killer. And she wins.This story is also important from a psychological point of view. Whatever your feelings about profiling may be, they have discovered so much and found impossible connections through their research, and we will never know how many lives it has saved. It's a kind of Paying-it-forward thing: By doing what they do, they prevent things that may have been inevitable in a different world.I once saw something (I can't remember exactly where) about some research they were doing on inmates. They took brain scans of a number of them, and noted that those who were certified as psychopathic, had an underdeveloped area in a certain part of their brains. If I can remember correctly, it had something to do with the mother producing too much serotonin during pregnancy, or some such scientific thing.How is this helpful, you may ask?Well, this is my personal opinion, so if it offends you, stop reading:Casey Anthony...Is she a psychopath who got away with murder?Yes, when I look at the facts of the case, and the things her attorney's did to get her free, I'm sickened to think the jurors couldn't believe a mother would do that to her child. Nobody LIKES to believe it, but I wish I could have seen a brain scan of her compared to those other psychopaths. I wish there was a psychologist who could have explained it to them.But enough about that.This book is, was and always will be important, because it brought certain realities home to the world we find ourselves in.If you haven't read it - but managed to get through this long review - what's the matter with you?But I am not trying to convince anybody of my point of view, so feel free to disagree.

Mark Renton has it all: he's good-looking, young, with a pretty girlfriend and a place at university. But there's no room for him in the 1980s. Thatcher's government is destroying working-class communities across Britain, and the post-war certainties of full employment, educational opportunity and a welfare state are gone. When his family starts to fracture, Mark's life swings out of control and he succumbs to the defeatism which has taken hold in Edinburgh's grimmer areas. The way out is heroin.It's no better for his friends. Spud Murphy is paid off from his job, Tommy Lawrence feels himself being sucked into a life of petty crime and violence - the worlds of the thieving Matty Connell and psychotic Franco Begbie. Only Sick Boy, the supreme manipulator of the opposite sex, seems to ride the current, scamming and hustling his way through it all.Skagboys charts their journey from likely lads to young men addicted to the heroin which has flooded their disintegrating community. This is the 1980s: a time of drugs, poverty, AIDS, violence, political strife and hatred - but a lot of laughs, and maybe just a little love; a decade which changed Britain for ever. The prequel to the world-renowned Trainspotting, this is an exhilarating and moving book, full of the scabrous humour, salty vernacular and appalling behaviour that has made Irvine Welsh a household name.

At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate; this far from civilization the boys can do anything they want. Anything. They attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin and evil. And as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far from reality as the hope of being rescued. Labeled a parable, an allegory, a myth, a morality tale, a parody, a political treatise, even a vision of the apocalypse, Lord of the Flies is perhaps our most memorable novel about “the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart.”

The author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero continues to shock and haunt us with his incisive and brilliant dissection of the modern world.In his most ambitious and gripping book yet, Bret Easton Ellis takes our celebrity obsessed culture and increases the volume exponentially. Set in 90s Manhattan, Victor Ward, a model with perfect abs and all the right friends, is seen and photographed everywhere, even in places he hasn't been and with people he doesn't know. He's living with one beautiful model and having an affair with another onthe eve of opening the trendiest nightclub in New York City history.And now it's time to move to the next stage. But the future he gets is not the one he had in mind. With the same deft satire and savage wit he has brought to his other fiction, Bret Ellis gets beyond the facade and introduces us, unsparingly, to what we always feared was behind it. Glamorama shows us a shadowy looking-glass reality, the juncture where fame and fashion and terror and mayhem meet and then begin to resemble the familiar surface of our lives."

From the author of the underground sensation Fight Club comes this wickedly incisive second novel, a mesmerizing, unnerving, and hilarious vision of cult and post-cult life.Tender Branson—last surviving member of the so-called Creedish Death Cult—is dictating his life story into the flight recorder of Flight 2039, cruising on autopilot at 39,000 feet somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. He is all alone in the airplane, which will crash shortly into the vast Australian outback. Before it does, he will unfold the tale of his journey from an obedient Creedish child and humble domestic servant to an ultra-buffed, steroid- and collagen-packed media messiah, author of a best-selling autobiography, Saved from Salvation, and the even better selling Book of Very Common Prayer (The Prayer to Delay Orgasm, The Prayer to Prevent Hair Loss, The Prayer to Silence Car Alarms). He'll reveal the truth of his tortured romance with the elusive and prescient Fertility Hollis, share his insight that "the only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage," and deny responsibility for the Tender Branson Sensitive Materials Sanitary Landfill, a 20,000-acre repository for the nation's outdated pornography. Among other matters both bizarre and trenchant.Not since Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night and Jerzy Kosinski's Being There has there been as dark and telling a satire on the wages of fame and the bedrock lunacy of the modern world. Unpredictable, compelling, and unforgettable, Survivor is Chuck Palahniuk at his deadpan peak; and it cements his place as one of the most original writers in fiction today.

Misty Wilmot has had it. Once a promising young artist, she’s now stuck on an island ruined by tourism, drinking too much and working as a waitress in a hotel. Her husband, a contractor, is in a coma after a suicide attempt, but that doesn’t stop his clients from threatening Misty with lawsuits over a series of vile messages they’ve found on the walls of houses he remodeled.Suddenly, though, Misty finds her artistic talent returning as she begins a period of compulsive painting. Inspired but confused by this burst of creativity, she soon finds herself a pawn in a larger conspiracy that threatens to cost hundreds of lives. What unfolds is a dark, hilarious story from America’s most inventive nihilist, and Palahniuk’s most impressive work to date.

On a day in April, just after three o'clock in the afternoon, Robert Maitland's car crashes over the concrete parapet of a high-speed highway onto the island below, where he is injured and, finally, trapped. What begins as an almost ludicrous predicament in Concrete Island soon turns into horror as Maitland - a wickedly modern Robinson Crusoe - realizes that, despite evidence of other inhabitants, this doomed terrain has become a mirror of his own mind. Seeking the dark outer rim of the everyday, Ballard weaves private catastrophe into an intensely specular allegory.

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last - inexorably - into evil.

Mark Fallon is an overworked detective investigating a spate of attacks at a string of high profile city centre nightclubs. Scott is a dejected 24 year old struggling to make ends meet working for his brother and supplementing his income with a small-scale drug dealing operation. Angela is an attractive 23 year old, raised by her father, a career criminal and small time drug dealer who supplies Scott with cannabis. This is a chilling tale spanning a few months in the lives of Scott and Angela, where realizations about the present combine with shocking revelations from the past leading to an apocalyptic climax where they no longer know whom they can trust.

If this book does not make you feel physical pain, I don't know what will.This isn't a book about killer clowns or haunted hotels. It's not a Hunger Games type of book, despite the "game show" element of the Long Walk, nor is it a world attached to any tower, Dark or not. This book is in-your-face and physical, while simultaneously never losing that dreamy, philosophic quality of existenstial fiction. The premise of the book is very simple: Every year, 100 boys enter a contest called the Long Walk, and the winner gets all his heart desires. Each contestant has to maintain a pace of 4 miles per hour or more, or else he gets a warning. If the boy who gets the warning can keep walking 4 miles per hour or faster for the next hour, the warning is revoked. However, if the boy collects three warnings, the next time he slows down, he's shot in the head and out of the game.I love this book, but it's really hard to communicate what I think it's trying to relate. As I'm writing this review, I'm desperately trying to organize my jumbled thoughts. The best I could do is to divide the book into two sections that broadly describe which parts of this book stood out to me the most: The Deeper Meaning (as I see it) &amp; How it's Done and The People.\
  The Deeper Meaning (as I see it) &amp; How It's Done\
The physical aspect of the journey immediately comes to the spotlight. You think you can outwalk 99 boys? Well, despite the 100% chance of someone actually doing it, you're 99% going to be the one to die either from exhaustion or carelessness. The story's downward spiral from the optimism of the first 10 hours to the torturous hell that is the last 10 hours is slow, relentless, and ultimately certain. Some of the boys' death were incredibly cringe worthy, not because their death was bizarre or fantastic, but because it's so damn relatable. I can't relate to a woman running away from her ghost-possessed husband as much as I can imagine my legs giving out after hours of walking in my own blood and pus. But what's extraordinary about this novel is despite its physicality and its real grit, it's very spiritual and contemplative. Ultimately, this book questions what it means to live through the eyes of one boy (and 99 others) who are walking right into the arms of death. As the boys break down physically, their minds deconstruct past the point of madness until they become lifeless, soulless automatons. I think it's at this point, when the boys are broken beyond exhaustion, that King really questions the value of life in the midst of such suffering, and how we push beyond sanity to sustain life. King doesn't point at authority or paternal figures to place blame on how extraordinary and torturous this desire to live can be. It's the walker who chooses to go on the Long Walk that, in the end, leads to death, no matter what we do. And life isn't nice. It won't slow down for you. Got blisters on your feet? Tough. Can't climb that hill after walking +24 hours? You'd better. Got to take a shit? If it takes longer than three warnings, you're going to die with your pants around your ankles. It seems, in this light, that life is much crueler than death. \
  The People\
Ah, the other great part about this book--and what makes this book so amazing! Unlike many of King's works, this book is not atmospheric. With the exception of comments about the weather and the terrain (obvious factors to consider when walking quite literally until death), the entire narrative is solely focused on the Long Walk itself and the people who are a part of it. I was hesitant to shelf this book under "dystopian" because I don't really know if it's a dystopia. All I know is that the Major, whoever he is, seems to be in charge (how much, I don't know) and the Long Walk is something celebrated by everyone who doesn't partake in it. All we get to know is Garraty, the main character in the story, and the other boys he meets in the Long Walk. None of these characters are forgettable. Garraty, McVries, and even Barkovitch are some of the most developed, fleshed out characters that I've had the pleasure of reading. The boys' interactions, teetering between the desire for the other to die and genuine camaraderie, were incredibly complex and touching. Whenever I read about a gunshot, I desperately hoped that it wasn't one of the boys that I knew because they were so real and likeable. Amid the hardship and torture, something about this book was very sincere, and despite what King may have intended, characters like McVries and Garraty made the journey extraordinarily...enjoyable, if not more emotionally painful. This book is something that will always remain in my mind. Not only was the writing engaging and visceral, but it struck a chord deep within me. Some people may not enjoy the book. It's raw, painful, and depressing. But on the other hand, it challenges, breaks, and strips bare the human soul, and ultimately the sympathy such an act invokes is an intense experience.5.0 stars and highly recommended!

1979 novel by Stephen King (under pseudonym Richard Bachman)

To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world....Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience—and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough ... not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work. Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

Marriage can be a real killer.On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?With her razor-sharp writing and trademark psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. The Chicago Tribune proclaimed that her work “draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.” Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit and deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.Source: gillian-flynn.com

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