Emo Nemo

Mily

Sarah

Shaidrian Rios

Jimmy Beans

miCCwatreSSop

Julie Wynne - videos

Kapuster

Nicky Tallon

Harini Sen

Vastralaya

Evan Shively (Perseus271)

Ayşe Kulin (born 26 August 1941) is a Turkish female short story writer, screenwriter and novelist.Kulin was born in Istanbul in 1941. Her father, Muhittin Kulin, of Bosniak origin, was one of the first civil engineers in Istanbul who founded the State Hydraulic Works (DSİ); he was soon appointed first director of this institution. Her mother Sitare Hanım, a Circassian, was the granddaughter of one of the Ottoman economy ministers.Kulin graduated from the American College for Girls in Arnavutköy, Istanbul. She released a collection of short stories titled Güneşe Dön Yüzünü in 1984. A short story from this called Gülizar was made into a film titled Kırık Bebek in 1986, for which she won a screenplay award from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Kulin worked as a screenwriter, cinematographer and producer for many films, television series and advertisements. In 1986, she won the "Best Cinematographer Award" from the Theatre Writers Association for her work in the television series Ayaşlı ve Kiracıları.

George Orwell's timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire on a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism.“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.  When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

When Angst turned 40, he knew it was over. Angst had longed to be a knight of Unsel, to make his mark in history, to be remembered for heroic deeds and wondrous acts. He grew up knowing he was destined for something great, but now it is too late. Not only is 40 far too old to become a knight, Angst is one of the few able to wield "the magics." For 2,000 years magic has been outlawed, repressed, even outright destroyed throughout the world of Ehrde. By law, Angst is reduced to using his great power only to file papers. His marriage is on the rocks, his friends are bored with him, and he hates his job. The one person that makes him happy is the young Princess Victoria who seems to adore him. Unfortunately, that makes his boss, the Queen, hate him. Without warning, Unsel is besieged with dangerous monsters - birds with metallic beaks, monkey creatures that can dive through solid ground, mindless horse-eating giants. The world that shunned magic now turns to Angst for help, and he is happy to listen once his back stops hurting. On the edge of a mid-life crisis, Angst drags his reluctant friends along with him on an adventure into the heart of magic. He's not sure where they're going, what they'll find, or even if they'll survive. But he knows this is his one chance to be a hero because the only way to fight magic is with magic.

L’Étranger (The Outsider (UK), or The Stranger (US)) is a French novel by Albert Camus published in 1942. Its theme and outlook are often cited as examples of Camus's philosophy of the absurd and existentialism, though Camus personally rejected the latter label.The title character is Meursault, an indifferent French Algerian ("a citizen of France domiciled in North Africa, a man of the Mediterranean, an homme du midi yet one who hardly partakes of the traditional Mediterranean culture"). He attends his mother's funeral. A few days later he kills an Arab man in French Algiers, who was involved in a conflict with a friend. Meursault is tried and sentenced to death. The story is divided into two parts, presenting Meursault's first-person narrative view before and after the murder, respectively.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Spanish: Crónica de una muerte anunciada) is a novella by Gabriel García Márquez, published in 1981. It tells, in the form of a pseudo-journalistic reconstruction, the story of the murder of Santiago Nasar by the two Vicario brothers.
The non-linear story, told by an anonymous narrator, begins with the morning of Santiago Nasar's death. The reader learns that Santiago lives with his mother, Placida Linero; the cook, Victoria Guzman; and the cook's daughter, Divina Flor. Santiago took over the successful family ranch after the death of his father Ibrahim, who was of Arab origin. He returns home in the early morning hours from an all night celebration of a wedding between a recent newcomer, Bayardo San Roman, and a long-term resident, Angela Vicario. Two hours after the wedding, Angela was dragged back to her mother's home by Bayardo because she was not a virgin. After a beating from her mother, Angela is forced to reveal the name of the man who has defiled her purity and honor. In a somewhat spurious manner, she reveals the man to be Santiago. Her two twin brothers, Pablo and Pedro Vicario, decide to kill Santiago in order to avenge the insult to their family honor with two knives previously used to slaughter pigs.

My Sweet Orange Tree(Portuguese:Meu Pé de Laranja Lima), is a novel by José Mauro de Vasconcelos. The book was first published in 1968 and was used for literature classes for elementary schools in Brazil. It has also been translated and published in the US and Europe.The novel is part of a tetralogy written by Vasconcelos and centered on different stages in the life of the protagonist, Zeze, and, by extension, Vasconcelos. The four books were published in a disorganized order, following an aleatory chronology instead of a direct one. The direct continuation of the story,Doidão, was actually published in 1963, five years beforeMy Sweet Orange Tree, and follows the life of Zeze during his adolescence.

Written in his distinctively dazzling manner, Oscar Wilde’s story of a fashionable young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty is the author’s most popular work. The tale of Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration caused a scandal when it ﬁrst appeared in 1890, but though Wilde was attacked for the novel’s corrupting inﬂuence, he responded that there is, in fact, “a terrible moral in Dorian Gray.” Just a few years later, the book and the aesthetic/moral dilemma it presented became issues in the trials occasioned by Wilde’s homosexual liaisons, which resulted in his imprisonment. Of Dorian Gray’s relationship to autobiography, Wilde noted in a letter, “Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be—in other ages, perhaps.

Hiroshima-born Sadako is lively and athletic--the star of her school's running team. And then the dizzy spells start. Soon gravely ill with leukemia, the "atom bomb disease," Sadako faces her future with spirit and bravery. Recalling a Japanese legend, Sadako sets to work folding paper cranes. For the legend holds that if a sick person folds one thousand cranes, the gods will grant her wish and make her healthy again. Based on a true story, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes celebrates the extraordinary courage that made one young woman a heroine in Japan.

This retrospective review is a real blast from my past, since I read this novel as a seven-year-old kid (I turned seven in 1959). Along with Stevenson's Treasure Island (which I read around the same time), it formed my lifelong liking for historical fiction, as well as a lifelong comfort with older, more formal diction patterns. (This was written in 1912 --and Gilbert actually employs an archaic, medieval-flavored style in the dialogue, and to a degree in the narration, which would have sounded very old-fashioned even back then.) It was also my first literary introduction to the whole Robin Hood mythos; I've read other novels about the forest-dwelling archer since then, but this one sort of became the mental template against which they're compared.Henry Gilbert (1868-1936) was a popular British author of adventure-oriented historical fiction who, as his preface here indicates, envisioned his audience as "healthy boys and girls," probably in their teens. (The view of him as primarily a boy's author comes from the sexist assumptions of the publishers who marketed his work.) I included the book on my "children's" shelf in deference to that background, and reprint editions continue to be marketed for kids and classified in those sections in many libraries. (The cover of the edition with the most linked reviews on Goodreads --and therefore the one that usually shows in a simple title search-- is actually a cartoonish one that makes the book seem intended for pre-schoolers; I think Gilbert would have found that one as disgusting as I do, and if he wasn't dead I suspect the publishers would have been sued.)However, in the Bluefield College library (where I was responsible for having the book ordered), I saw to it that it was classified in the regular, not the Juvenile, collection. IMO, it's a book that some teens and tweens today could read and enjoy; but it's not a "kiddie" book in the sense that most of us think of those. The diction takes some degree of reading skill, though it wouldn't daunt an adult or a serious kid; the characters are adults, and think and act like adults, and there's nothing about the plotting or action that's dumbed-down to small-child level. (Gilbert doesn't use foul language or interject sexual content; but adult authors in his day didn't either, and those elements aren't needed to make a work "adult.") I'd say the primary audience today would be readers of all ages, from about 11-12 on, who are serious fans of adventure-oriented medieval fiction. Though I read it at seven, I wouldn't recommend it for most kids quite that young; some terms were over my head --I didn't know what "October brewing" was, for instance, being totally ignorant of ale-making-- and the use of lethal force against the bad guys was morally challenging to me at the time, with a child's innate sensibilities (although it's something I was able to work through).Historical accuracy was a hallmark of Gilbert's writing, and he was thoroughly familiar with the whole corpus of about forty medieval ballads that constitute our primary sources for Robin's life. (The author was among those who believe the legends have a basis in fact, and that Robin was a real person, though the balladeers may have idealized him somewhat --but, as Gilbert observes, "that is what poets and writers are always expected to do.") Following the example of Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe, he locates Robin's prime in the late 1100s, making him a contemporary of Richard the Lion-Hearted and King John. He draws primarily on the oldest ballads for instances to re-tell, but he adds other events and characters of his own creation; all of these are handled very realistically, to give an authentic flavor of the time. There's a lively social and ethical awareness here; the injustices of feudalism are depicted quite clearly, and though Robin is an outlaw in an unjust legal system, he's an outlaw with a strong and genuine moral code. Maid Marian, who eventually becomes Robin's wife, is an important character, and the romance is one plot strand; but it doesn't overwhelm the other plot strands, and the treatment of it isn't bodice-ripping or sappy.Besides this book, I can also heartily recommend Gilbert's The Book of Pirates, a collection of well-researched fictionalized re-tellings of the careers of notable pirates from Roman times down to the early modern era (which I read when I was a few years older).

Let’s face it….\
  \
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!!

A Methuen Student Edition of Chekhov's classic play in Michael Frayn's acclaimed translation.When it first opened in St Petersburg in 1896, The Seagull survived only five performances after a disastrous first opening night. Two years later it was revived by Nemirovich-Danchenko at the newly-founded Moscow Art Theatre with Stanslasky as Trigorin and was an immediate success. Checkhov's description of the play was characteristically self-mocking: "A comedy - 3F, 6M, four acts, rural scenery (a view over a lake); much talk of literature, little action, five bushels of love".Michael Frayn's translation was commissioned by the Oxford Playhouse Company.

One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and dangerous locations, they seize whatever transportation is at hand—whether train or elephant—overcoming set-backs and always racing against the clock.

A delightfully dishy novel about the all-time most impossible boss in the history of impossible bosses. Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job “a million girls would die for.” Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of "Runway "magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts "Prada! Armani! Versace!" at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child. THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA gives a rich and hilarious new meaning to complaints about “The Boss from Hell.” Narrated in Andrea’s smart, refreshingly disarming voice, it traces a deep, dark, devilish view of life at the top only hinted at in gossip columns and over Cosmopolitans at the trendiest cocktail parties. From sending the latest, not-yet-in-stores Harry Potter to Miranda’s children in Paris by private jet, to locating an unnamed antique store where Miranda had at some point admired a vintage dresser, to serving lattes to Miranda at precisely the piping hot temperature she prefers, Andrea is sorely tested each and every day—and often late into the night with orders barked over the phone. She puts up with it all by keeping her eyes on the prize: a recommendation from Miranda that will get Andrea a top job at any magazine of her choosing. As things escalate from the merely unacceptable to the downright outrageous, however, Andrea begins to realize that the job a million girls would die for may just kill her. And even if she survives, she has to decide whether or not the job is worth the price of her soul.

The Little Prince (French: Le Petit Prince, pronounced [lә p(ә)ti pᴚἕS]) is a novella by French aristocrat, writer, and military aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and was published posthumously in France following liberation; Saint-Exupéry's works had been banned by the Vichy Regime. The story follows a young prince who visits various planets in space, including Earth, and address themes of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss. Despite its style as a children's book, The Little Prince makes observations about life, adults and human nature. [9]The Little Prince became Saint-Exupéry's most successful work, selling an estimated 140 million copies worldwide, which makes it one of the best-selling in history.[10][11][12][Note 2][14]The book has been translated into over 505 different languages and dialects worldwide, being the second most translated work ever published, trailing only the Bible.[15][16][17] The Little Prince has been adapted to numerous art forms and media, including audio recordings, radio plays, live stage, film, television, ballet, and opera.[16][18]

I don’t know what to do with these stars anymore. I give stars to books and then I think, ‘god, you give five stars to everything, people will think you are terribly undiscriminating’ – so then I give four stars or even three stars to some books. Then I look back and it turns out that that I’ve given four stars to Of Human Bondage and honestly, how could I possibly have thought it was a good idea to give that book less than five stars? It is the absurdity of human conventions that has us doing such things.Now, that is what is called a segue, from the Italian ‘seguire’ – to follow. For the last thirty years I have studiously avoided reading this book. I have done that because for the last thirty years I have known exactly what this book is about and there just didn’t seem any point in reading it. In high school friends (one of them even became my ex-wife) told me it was a great book about a man condemned to die because he was an outsider. Later I was told that this book was a story about something much like the Azaria Chamberlain case. A case where someone does not react in a way that is considered to be ‘socially appropriate’ and is therefore condemned.But after 30 years of avoiding reading this book I have finally relented and read it. At first I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it. It didn’t really get off to the raciest of starts and the character's voice – it is told in first person – was a bit dull. He is a man who lives entirely in the present, how terribly Buddhist of him – although, really there doesn’t seem to be all that much to him.My opinion of the book began to change at his mother’s funeral. I particularly liked the man who kept falling behind in the march to the cemetery and would take short cuts. Okay, so it is black humour, but Camus was more or less French – so black humour is more or less obligatory.I really hadn’t expected this book to be nearly so funny as it turned out. I’d always been told it was a ponderous philosophical text – and so, to be honest, I was expecting to be bored out of my skull. I wasn’t in the least bit bored.A constant theme in my life at present is that I read ‘classics’ expecting them to be about something and they end up being about something completely different. And given I’ve called this a ‘constant’ theme then you might think I would be less than surprised when a read a new ‘classic’ and it turns out to be completely different to my expectations. I’m a little more upset about this one than some of the others, as I’ve been told about this one before, repeatedly, and by people I’d have taken as ‘reputable sources’ – although, frankly, how well one should trust one’s ex-wife in such matters is moot.I had gotten the distinct impression from all of my previous discussions about this book that the guy ends up dead. In fact, this is not the case – he ends up at the point in his life where he has no idea if he will be freed or not. The Priest who comes to him at the end is actually quite certain that he will be freed. Let’s face it, he is only guilty of having murdered an Arab, and as we have daily evidence, Westerners can murder Arabs with complete impunity. The main point of the book to me is when he realises he is no longer ‘free’. He needs this explained to him – because life up until then had been about ‘getting used to things’ and one can 'get used to just about anything'. But the prison guard helpfully informs him that he is being ‘punished’ and the manifestation of that punishment is the removal of his ‘freedom’. Interestingly, he didn’t notice the difference between his past ‘free’ life and his current ‘unfree’ one. The most interesting part of the book to me was the very end, the conversation with the priest. The religious often make the mistake of thinking that Atheists are one thing – I’ve no idea how they ever came to make this mistake, but make it they do. Given that there are thousands upon thousands of different shades of Christians – from Jesuit Catholics to Anti-Disney Episcopalians – it should be fairly obvious that something like Atheism (without any ‘organised’ church or even system of beliefs) could not be in anyway ‘homogeneous’.I am definitely not the same kind of Atheist as Camus. To Camus there is no truth, the world is essentially absurd and all that exists is the relative truth an individual places on events and ideas. This makes the conversation with the priest fascinatingly interesting. To the priest the prisoner who is facing death is – by necessity – someone who is interested in God. You can play around with ideas like the non-existence of God when it doesn’t seem to matter (life is long and blasphemy can seem fun) – but surely when confronted with the stark truth of the human condition any man would turn away from their disbelief and see the shining light.Not this little black duck. Now, if I was in that cell I would have argued with the priest too – but I would not have argued in the same way that Meursault argues. No, I do not believe in God, but I do believe in truth, and so Camus’ arguments are barred to me.Meursault essentially says, “Look, I’m bored, I’m totally uninterested in the rubbish you are talking – now go away”. Now, this is a reasonable response. What is very interesting is that the priest cannot accept this as an answer. The world is not allowed to have such a person in it – if such a person really did exist then it would be a fundamental challenge to the core beliefs of the priest. So, he has to assume Meursault is either lying to him or is trying to taunt him. But it is much worse – he is absolutely sincere, he is not interested in this ‘truth’.I don’t know that the world is completely meaningless, it is conventional rather than meaningless. That those conventions are arbitrary (decided by the culture we grew up in) doesn’t make them meaningless, it makes them conventional. I don’t think I would like to live in a world where people go up and kill Arabs pretty much at random and with impunity, but then again, we have already established this is precisely the world I do live in. My point is that it would be better if we did adhere to some sort of moral principles and that these should be better principles than ‘he should be killed because he didn’t cry at his mum’s funeral’. Camus is seeking to say that all of our ‘moral principles’ in the end come to be as meaningless as that – we judge on the basis of what we see from the framework of our own limited experience. And look, yes, there is much to this – but this ends up being too easy.The thing I like most about Existentialism, though it isn’t really as evident in this book as it is in the actual philosophy – although this is something that Meursault is supposed to have grown to understand (sorry, just one more sub-clause) even though this wasn’t something I noticed at all while reading the book, was the notion of responsibility. I didn’t think in the end Meursault was all that much more ‘responsible’ for his actions than he had been at the start. But I do think that ‘responsibility’ is a key concept in morality and one that seems increasingly to be ignored.Better by far that we feel responsible for too much in our lives than too little – better by far that we take responsibility for the actions of our governments (say) than to call these governments ‘them’. I’m not advocating believing in The Secret - but that if one must err, better to err on the side of believing you have too much responsibility for how your life has turned out, rather than too little.So, what can I say? I enjoyed this much more than I expected – but I’m still glad I waited before reading it, I really don’t think I would have gotten nearly as much out of it at 15 as I did now.

This book is all about character. If you are going to have to live with the kind of disability that hides your intelligence, as cerebral palsey did Christy Brown's, and you want to live as full a life as possible, then two things are indispensible. One is a supporter with a great strength of character who will enable you to do whatever you can. The other is to have great strength of character yourself and maintain it when all around you see only your disability, not your glowing intelligence, talent and determination to live a full life. It also helps to have, as Dr. Stephen Hawking had, a lot of money. Christy Brown and his mother might have lacked money, but they were strong together, sometimes the total is far more than the sum of its parts. And so he achieved a good life through his talents of writing, poetry and painting, and that the brought the money that made his life and that of his mother that much easier. He died tragically of choking at dinner at home. He was 49.

When an open-minded Jewish librarian and his son become victims of the Holocaust, he uses a perfect mixture of will, humor, and imagination to protect his son from the dangers around their camp.

1997 Italian film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni

Tells the story of Benjamin Button, a man who starts aging backwards with consequences.

A criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rebels against the oppressive nurse and rallies up the scared patients.

1975 drama film based on the novel by Ken Kesey

A sexually frustrated suburban father has a mid-life crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter's best friend.

1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes

The magically long-haired Rapunzel has spent her entire life in a tower, but now that a runaway thief has stumbled upon her, she is about to discover the world for the first time, and who she really is.

2010 computer-animated musical fantasy-comedy film by Disney

A fast-track lawyer can't lie for 24 hours due to his son's birthday wish after he disappoints his son for the last time.

In the future, a sadistic gang leader is imprisoned and volunteers for a conduct-aversion experiment, but it doesn't go as planned.

1971 dystopian crime film directed by Stanley Kubrick

Based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a Daytona Beach prostitute who became a serial killer.

A frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820s fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team.

2015 film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

For his final assignment, a top temporal agent must pursue the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time. The chase turns into a unique, surprising and mind-bending exploration of love, fate, identity and time travel taboos.

2014 science fiction mystery thriller film directed by Spierig brothers

A Polish Jewish musician struggles to survive the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto of World War II.

2002 biographic film on the Warsaw Ghetto directed by Roman Polanski

In 1980s Italy, romance blossoms between a seventeen-year-old student and the older man hired as his father's research assistant.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2008 historical drama film written and directed by Mark Herman. It is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by John Boyne. Set in Nazi-occupied Poland, the film follows the son of an SS officer who befriends a Holocaust prisoner of his age. It was released in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2008. It received generally positive reviews from critics for being touching but was panned by scholars for misrepresenting elements of the Holocaust.

As a string of mysterious killings grips Seattle, Bella, whose high school graduation is fast approaching, is forced to choose between her love for vampire Edward and her friendship with werewolf Jacob.

This film adaptation of a Roald Dahl work tells the story of Matilda Wormwood, a gifted girl forced to put up with a crude, distant father and mother.

1996 American fantasy film by Danny DeVito

A five-year-old boy develops a relationship with Ponyo, a young goldfish princess who longs to become a human after falling in love with him.

2008 Japanese animated film directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Adèle's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire and to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adèle grows, seeks herself, loses herself, and ult

High School Musical 3: Senior Year is a 2008 American musical film written by Peter Barsocchini and directed by Kenny Ortega. The sequel to High School Musical 2 (2007) and the third installment of the High School Musical film series, the film follows Troy Bolton (Zac Efron), Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Hudgens), Sharpay Evans (Ashley Tisdale), her twin brother Ryan Evans (Lucas Grabeel), Chad Danforth (Corbin Bleu), and Taylor McKessie (Monique Coleman), who are in their final year of high school and face the daunting prospect of being separated as they go off to college. Joined by the rest of their East High classmates, they stage their last spring musical, reflecting their experiences, hopes, and fears about the future.

After the earth-shattering revelations of Insurgent, Tris must escape with Four beyond the wall that encircles Chicago, to finally discover the shocking truth of the world around them.

2016 American science fiction adventure film directed by Robert Schwentke

After awakening from a four-year coma, a former assassin wreaks vengeance on the team of assassins who betrayed her.

The misadventures of a talking sea sponge who works at a fast food restaurant, attends a boating school, and lives in an underwater pineapple.

Lucifer Morningstar has decided he's had enough of being the dutiful servant in Hell and decides to spend some time on Earth to better understand humanity. He settles in Los Angeles - the City of Angels.

Maniac is the story of Espen, a man in his thirties who is loved by everyone. Every day is a party and there's no limit to what he experiences. We meet Espen in various situations where everything is amazing and whatever happens, Esp

An unusual group of robbers attempt to carry out the most perfect robbery in Spanish history - stealing 2.4 billion euros from the Royal Mint of Spain.

A mockumentary on a group of typical office workers, where the workday consists of ego clashes, inappropriate behavior, and tedium.

Follows the lives of 5 families living on the same street in a neighbourhood called Ssangmundong in Seoul. It takes a nostalgic look back at the year 1988.

She broke the law for the boss she fell in love with. Now this naive girl has to pay the price.

Set in a future where consciousness is digitized and stored, a prisoner returns to life in a new body and must solve a mind-bending murder to win his freedom.

Four people and their otherworldly frienemy struggle in the afterlife to define what it means to be good.

2016 American fantasy comedy television series

A space colony family struggles to survive when a spy/accidental stowaway throws their ship hopelessly off course.

1965–68 American science fiction television series

DCI John Luther is a near-genius murder detective whose brilliant mind can't always save him from the dangerous violence of his passions.

British psychological crime drama television series

In April 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics becomes one of the world's worst man-made catastrophes.

2019 miniseries about the Chernobyl disaster

Having married young, when frustration with their lives make Choi Ban Doo and Ma Jin Joo regret their marriage of 18 years, a strange occurrence has them traveling back in time to the day before they met and into their younger selves

An animated series that follows the exploits of a super scientist and his not-so-bright grandson.

A look at life for a group of high school students as they grapple with issues of drugs, sex, and violence.

2019 American teen drama television series

The murder of a young boy in a small coastal town brings a media frenzy, which threatens to tear the community apart.

Follows the political rivalries and romance of Queen Elizabeth II's reign and the events that shaped the second half of the twentieth century.

British–American television drama series

A group of people around the world are suddenly linked mentally, and must find a way to survive being hunted by those who see them as a threat to the world's order.

Three super-powered little girls constantly save the world (or at least the city of Townsville) from monsters, would-be conquerers and a few other gross things.

American animated television series from 1998–2005

The adventures of a young orphan girl living in the late 19th century. Follow Anne as she learns to navigate her new life on Prince Edward Island, in this new take on L.M. Montgomery's classic novels.

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