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Diderot's The Nun (La Religieuse) is the seemingly true story of a young girl forced by her parents to enter a convent and take holy orders. A novel mingling mysticism, madness, sadistic cruelty and nascent sexuality, it gives a scathing insight into the effects of forced vocations and the unnatural life of the convent. A succès de scandale at the end of the eighteenth century, it has attracted and unsettled readers ever since. For Diderot's novel is not simply a story of a young girl with a bad habit; it is also a powerfully emblematic fable about oppression and intolerance.This new translation includes Diderot's all-important prefatory material, which he placed, disconcertingly, at the end of the novel, and which turns what otherwise seems like an exercise in realism into what is now regarded as a masterpiece of proto-modernist fiction.

This is one long howl of rage, interspersed with shockingly brief lucid sections, followed by another info dump of ineffable horror. You know how in The Dark Knight there's that line, "Some men just want to watch the world burn"? Mike Davis would like to inform you that the world is burning, that it is your fault, and that there is nothing that you can do to stop it. If this were the Middle Ages, Davis would have made a fine living as a fire and brimstone preacher, leading rows of self-flagellating monks through the streets and warning you that Judgment Day is coming. Except in this version, hell is not a pit of fire. Instead, it is most probably a pit of human excrement. Davis takes us on a tour of "megacities" throughout the world- though, mostly they are located in the Third World South, let's be honest. He has eight different chapters describing a different aspect of why these slums are horrible beyond imagining, plus subdivisions into different shades of horrible so we don't confuse each source of awful with another. It's everything from the incredible density of people to the shoddy, amazingly small housing, the system of "slumlordism" that develops even with "petty" landlords with a few 10 sq ft clapboard rooms to sell (which means an amazing labyrinth of levels of desperately poor within the category of poor), the awful ecological conditions the slums are founded on, the terrible diseases, the toxic wastes and the daily body counts of people dropping in the streets because of this. And as if this weren't enough, he goes on to tell you why even the most selfish of first worlders should care- because the Pentagon is already preparing for slum warfare, because of course the oppressed of the earth will rise up one day. If their daily horror doesn't arrive in the form of pollution, overwhelming tides of migration or diseases that do not recognize borders, it will arrive through uncontrollable conflicts that spread, or through increased terrorism as more and more people give up on a system that they have never been inside to begin with.That's one of his more fascinating ideas- that the capitalist world system has deemed these tens of millions of people "surplus" population, and never changed their status. They have always been outside. Slums have sprung up all over the world in an "illegal" way and cities have never given these areas even basic infrastructure- roads, sewers, electricity, you name it. State and local authorities routinely bulldoze the areas to try to "clean up the slums" and millions of people just end up moving somewhere with worse conditions that will involve even more deaths. If the state admitted them as a part of the "legal" system, they would have to do something about them, and quite frankly no one knows what to do about 20 million people in Kinshasa, a city that essentially has no industry at all, and no hope of providing for a tenth that many people. Europe got to offload its "surplus" to the New World. There is no New World anymore- these slums are hundreds of times the size of Victorian London, and ten times worse than the worse parts of seedy, colonial Dublin. I thought that this was a good point to make, because I think when a lot of Euro-American people hear "slums" they think of the projects of Detroit or the soot filled back streets of Dickens. Just to give some perspective on this book... "projects" are actually considered a dream in many of these places. The state sometimes builds "low income housing" and the middle class usurps it, partially because "low" is still not low enough. The slums of the First World imagination are the middle class of certain areas of the Third World. This was one of the more affecting points of the book. Though the most affecting is an entire section entitled "Shit" where Davis describes in excruciating detail the "toilet" industry of the slums, where people actually pay to have access to a latrine, as public ones are about 1 per 1000 people in some areas. To get into some latrines you have to wade through rivers of urine and crap, as you do to get across the streets near them. Since the pay latrines are often too expensive and the public ones buried under piles of excrement, many people simply go anywhere- in the streets, in the parks. There are actually wars over "defecation rights" in certain cities (I am not making this up) between the middle and lower classes. Women can't go to the bathroom during the day because of societal expectations about modesty, so they try to wait to shit until nighttime (and often skip eating during the day so they don't have to until then). Except then when they go out to do it at night they get raped, beaten, and/or killed. This section I thought really got at the essence of just how horrible these lives are. I mentioned in class that it had made me physically ill to read, and everyone agreed with me. Do not approach this part with any food in your stomach, I warn you now.However, his relentless assault of examples, numbing numbers and statistics and apocalyptic pronouncements don't really... accomplish anything. The reader is not left with a sense of wanting to do something about this... just really a sense of hopelessness. Davis tears down every attempt, native or foreign, rich or poor, to try to help slum areas as ineffective, condescending, evil, or worse. There is no way to be a person with any kind of resources and try to help the slum situation without being wrong in some way. He also emphasizes the sheer size of the problem over and over again- numbers one can't even begin to comprehend really. Any "high tech miracles" can't even begin to cover the number of people in these areas- all it does is increase inequalities. It's like facing the numbers that Stalin killed v. the numbers Hitler did. 6 million in the Holocaust, while an unbelievable existential horror is a number that pales in comparison to the 20 million plus who disappeared during Stalin's purges and because of his policies. It's much less talked about than the Nazi crimes. Because what do you do with a number like that?I think that this translates to the slums. I've seen the slum problem acknowledged in popular culture- most recently of course in Slumdog Millionaire and all the run up/follow up to that about the actors' lives who were actually from the slum (apparently the slum that one of the child actors still lives in burned down the other week, by the way. Another pervasive hazard of slum life). There was a good deal of sanctimonious commentary about the directors' treatment of the people in this film, but I don't remember there being a lot of wider discussion about solving the problems of slum life. It was like acknowledging it was all people could do. This seems to be the case in other depictions I've seen as well- even stretching back into the 90s. I find myself doing the same thing.I have errands to run, jobs to do-I don't even really have the time to spend writing this review about this book. What do you do with this idea when you finish this book and then need to go pick up your dry cleaning before the shop closes? It's difficult. I don't know. I'm glad I read this, but I wanted something more.

"I shall tell you where we are. We're in the most extreme and utter region of the human mind. A dim, subconscious underworld. A radiant abyss where men meet themselves. Hell, Netley. We're in Hell." Having proved himself peerless in the arena of reinterpreting superheroes, Alan Moore turned his ever-incisive eye to the squalid, enigmatic world of Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel murders of 1888. Weighing in at 576 pages, From Hell is certainly the most epic of Moore's works and remarkably and is possibly his finest effort yet in a career punctuated by such glorious highlights as Watchmen and V for Vendetta . Going beyond the myriad existing theories, which range from the sublime to the ridiculous, Moore presents an ingenious take on the slaughter. His Ripper's brutal activities are the epicentre of a conspiracy involving the very heart of the British Establishment, including the Freemasons and The Royal Family. A popular claim, which is transformed through Moore's exquisite and thoroughly gripping vision, of the Ripper crimes being the womb from which the 20th century, so enmeshed in the celebrity culture of violence, received its shocking, visceral birth. Bolstered by meticulous research that encompasses a wide spectrum of Ripper studies and myths and coupled with his ability to evoke sympathies in such monstrous characters, Moore has created perhaps the finest examination of the Ripper legacy, observing far beyond society's obsessive need to expose Evil's visage. Ultimately, as Moore observes, Jack's identity and his actions are inconsequential to the manner in which society embraced the Fear: "It's about us. It's about our minds and how they dance. Jack mirrors our hysterias. Faceless, he is the receptacle for each new social panic." Eddie Campbell's stunning black and white artwork, replete with a scratchy, dirty sheen, is perfectly matched to the often-unshakeable intensity of Moore's writing. Between them, each murder is rendered in horrifying detail, providing the book's most unnerving scenes, made more so in uncomfortable, yet lyrical moments as when the villain embraces an eviscerated corpse, craving understanding; pleading that they "are wed in legend, inextricable within eternity". Though technically a comic, the term hardly begins to describe From Hell's inimitable grandeur and finesse, as it takes the medium to fresh heights of ingenuity and craftsmanship. Moore and Campbell's autopsy on the emaciated corpse of the Ripper myth has divulged a deeply disturbing yet undeniably captivating masterpiece. - Danny Graydon

Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now . . . Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid's Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.

In Max Barry's twisted, hilarious and terrifying vision of the near future, the world is run by giant corporations and employees take the last names of the companies they work for. It's a globalised, ultra-capitalist free market paradise! Hack Nike is a lowly merchandising officer who's not very good at negotiating his salary. So when John Nike and John Nike, executives from the promised land of Marketing, offer him a contract, he signs without reading it. Unfortunately, Hack's new contract involves shooting teenagers to build up street cred for Nike's new line of $2,500 trainers. Hack goes to the police—but they assume that he's asking for a subcontracting deal and lease the assassination to the more experienced NRA. Enter Jennifer Government, a tough-talking agent with a barcode tattoo under her eye and a personal problem with John Nike (the boss of the other John Nike). And a gun. Hack is about to find out what it really means to mess with market forces.

A driving force behind the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, Hoffman inspired a generation to challenge the status quo. Meant as a practical guide for the aspiring hippie, Steal This Book captures Hoffman's puckish tone and became a cult classic with over 200,000 copies sold. Outrageously illustrated by R. Crumb, it nevertheless conveys a serious message to all would-be revolutionaries: You don't have to take it anymore. "All Power to the Imagination was his credo. Abbie was the best." —Studs Terkel

In this science fiction classic, we are transported millions of years from now, to the boughs of a colossal banyan tree that covers one face of the globe. The last remnants of humanity are fighting for survival, terrorised by the carnivorous plants and the grotesque insect life.Contents:· Hothouse · Brian W. Aldiss · nv F&amp;SF Feb ’61 · Nomansland · Brian W. Aldiss · nv F&amp;SF Apr ’61 · Undergrowth · Brian W. Aldiss · na F&amp;SF Jul ’61 · Timberline · Brian W. Aldiss · nv F&amp;SF Sep ’61 · Evergreen · Brian W. Aldiss · na F&amp;SF Dec ’61

The internationally renowned novel about the life and death of Jesus Christ.Hailed as a masterpiece by critics worldwide, The Last Temptation of Christ is a monumental reinterpretation of the Gospels that brilliantly fleshes out Christ’s Passion. This literary rendering of the life of Jesus Christ has courted controversy since its publication by depicting a Christ far more human than the one seen in the Bible. He is a figure who is gloriously divine but earthy and human, a man like any other—subject to fear, doubt, and pain.  In elegant, thoughtful prose Nikos Kazantzakis, one of the greats of modern literature, follows this Jesus as he struggles to live out God’s will for him, powerfully suggesting that it was Christ’s ultimate triumph over his flawed humanity, when he gave up the temptation to run from the cross and willingly laid down his life for mankind, that truly made him the venerable redeemer of men.  “Spiritual dynamite.” —San Francisco Chronicle  “A searing, soaring, shocking novel.” —Time 

"Acclaimed around the world and a national best-seller, this is the definitive work on Che Guevara, the dashing rebel whose epic dream was to end poverty and injustice in Latin America and the developing world through armed revelation. Jon Lee Anderson's biography traces Che's extraordinary life, from his comfortable Argentine upbringing to the battlefields of the Cuban revolution, from the halls of power in Castro's government to his failed campaign in the Congo and assassination in the Bolivian Jungle.Anderson has had unprecedented access to the personal archives maintained by Guevara's window and carefully guarded Cuban government documents. He has conducted extensive interviews with Che's comarades-some of whom speak here for the first time-and with CIA men and Bolivian officers who hunted him down. Anderson broke the story of where Guevara's body was buried, which led to the exhumation and stat burial of the bones. Many of the details of Che's life have long been cloaked in secrecy and intrigue. Meticulously researched and full of exclusive information, Che Guevara illuminates as never before this mythic figure who embodied the high-water mark of revolutionary communism as a force in history."

Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.

Set in 2019, The Beyond chronicles the groundbreaking mission which sent astronauts - modified with advanced robotics, through a newly discovered worm hole known as the Void. When the mission returns unexpectedly, the space agency races to discover what the astronauts encountered on their first of its kind interstellar space journey.

A young man -- starving, nearly catatonic and barely responsive -- is confined in a sanitarium. He is taken on a field trip along with other residents to the city's red-light district. There, he encounters by chance a woman from his past, triggering a series of flashbacks. We see that he was traumatized as a child, when he and his family were circus performers, and when he witnessed a murder/suicide: his father -- an American expatriate living in Mexico under suspicious circumstances -- cuts off the arms of his beloved mother, a possessive wife and religious fanatic who led a heretical church called "Santa Sangre (Holy Blood)," the members of which worshipped a martyred girl whose arms were severed by her father following her rape, and then commit suicide. Back in the present, buttressed by shock of his remembrance, he escapes the sanitarium and, in a series of hallucinations and dream-fulfillments, believes he has rejoined his armless mother. He "becomes her arms" and the "two" undertake a grisly campaign of murder and revenge.

Five days in the Nashville country and gospel music scene, filled with stars, wannabe stars, and other hangers-on - individual stories of this small group intertwined - provides a commentary on American society. The stars include: good ol' boy Haven Hamilton, whose patriotic songs leading up to the American bicentennial belie his controlling and ruthless nature; Barbara Jean, the country music darling who is just returning to Nashville and performing following recovery from a fire-related injury which may have taken more of an emotional toll than a physical one; and good looking and charismatic Tom Frank, one-third of the successful group Bill, Mary, and Tom, he who is trying to go solo, which masks his need to not be solo in his personal life as he emotionally abuses woman after woman in love with him, including Mary who is married to Bill. The wannabe stars include: Albuquerque, whose real name is Winifred, who is trying to run away from her husband Star in he not approving of her career choice; and Sueleen Gay, a waitress who will do anything to make it big in music despite being told directly that she has no singing talent. Tying their stories together are: Opal, a supposed reporter for the BBC who is working on a documentary and is searching for whatever angle she can; John Triplette, a Yankee in town to organize political fundraisers, including a country music outdoor concert, for third party (the Replacement Party) presidential candidate, populist Hal Phillip Walker, who has the potential to take just enough votes to affect the election; and Martha, who has renamed herself L.A. Jones, who is in town to visit her hospitalized ailing aunt, but who instead decides to be a groupie to any country music star she can find.

Three portraits of young women, each taken from a short story by the French writer Maupassant.

The story of how an eccentric French shop-keeper and amateur film-maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner. The film contains footage of Banksy, Shephard Fairey, Invader and many of the world's most infamous graffiti artists at work.

In 1969 Paris, the filming of a sci-fi movie set in the distant year 2001 is in trouble. The director's obsession with the actress who plays the sexy secret agent Dragonfly has clouded his judgment and the film has no ending. A young American, in Paris to document his life on film with total honesty, is brought in to finish the movie with a bang. This proves to be difficult when the line between his fantasy life and reality becomes blurred, and he finds himself seduced by Dragonfly's charms.

Sun Ra--space-age prophet, pharoanic jester, shaman-philosopher and avant-jazz keyboardist/bandleader--lands his spaceship in Oakland, having been presumed lost in space for a few years. With Black Power on the rise, Ra disembarks and proclaims himself "the alter-destiny." He holds a myth-vs.-reality rap session with black inner-city youth at a rec center, threatening "to chain you up and take you with me, like they did you in Africa," if they resist his plea to go to outer space. He duels at cards with The Overseer, a satanic overlord, with the fate of the black race at stake. Ra wins the right to a world concert, which features great performance footage of the Arkestra. Agents sent by the Overseer attempt to assassinate Ra, but he vanishes, rescues his people, and departs in his spaceship from the exploding planet Earth.

Corrine Burns retreats far into plans for her band, The Fabulous Stains, after her mother's death. So far that she gets them (she and two cousins) on a tour with a washed-out glam-rock group and a rising British punk band, radically changes her appearance, attracts a cult following and national media attention. With luck like this, what could go wrong?

A small village is renowned for its "Ruby Glass" glass blowing works. When the foreman of the works dies suddenly without revealing the secret of the Ruby Glass, the town slides into a deep depression, and the owner of the glassworks becomes obssessed with the lost secret.

Defying his parents, Hsiao Kang drops out of the local crammer to head for the bright lights of downtown Taipei. He falls in with Ah Tze, a pretty hood and their relationships is a confused mixture of hero-worship and rivalry that soon leads to trouble.

This film contains four distinct, separate stories. "Black Hair": A poor samurai who divorces his true love to marry for money, but finds the marriage disastrous and returns to his old wife, only to discover something eerie about her. "The Woman in the Snow": Stranded in a snowstorm, a woodcutter meets an icy spirit in the form of a woman spares his life on the condition that he never tell anyone about her. A decade later he forgets his promise. "Hoichi the Earless": Hoichi is a blind musician, living in a monastery who sings so well that a ghostly imperial court commands him to perform the epic ballad of their death battle for them. But the ghosts are draining away his life, and the monks set out to protect him by writing a holy mantra over his body to make him invisible to the ghosts. But they've forgotten something. "In a Cup of Tea": a writer tells the story of a man who keep seeing a mysterious face reflected in his cup of tea.

Married couple Bernard and Vivian Jaffe operate their own detective agency. They're not ordinary detectives, but existentialist detectives whose clients want them to discover some deeper meaning of life. Their latest client is Albert Markovski, the poetry spouting, bicycle riding founder and director of the Open Spaces Coalition, whose raison d'être is the opposition of suburban sprawl in protecting open spaces. Their latest project is opposition to the construction of a Huckabees outlet on some suburban marshland, it a big box retailer. Brad Stand, a flashy Huckabees sales executive, is trying to seize control of the coalition to thwart Albert. Albert, who only "stumbled" upon Vivian and Bernard's agency, wants them to discover not anything related to work - in fact, he wants them to stay clear of his work altogether - but the meaning behind his encounters with a young, thin, tall black man, who he's run into in three different, unrelated situations. Regardless of Albert's request, Bernard and Vivian do look into his work in needing to see all aspects of his life, in the process Brad also hiring them in his continued takeover of all things Albert, which affects Brad's beautiful but insecure girlfriend, Dawn Campbell, the voice and image of Huckabee's latest marketing campaign. Bernard and Vivian further believe that both Albert and another of their existing clients, firefighter Tommy Corn, would benefit from being each other's "other". Tommy, whose wife does not understand him, believes all the world's problems are the result of petroleum. Tommy has recently come to an epiphany in reading Caterine Vauban's book he thought was given to him by Bernard and Vivian, but she who is really Bernard and Vivian's rival, a Frenchwoman come to infiltrate their cases. That epiphany, Caterine's theory, is that nothing is coincidental, she using science to back her theory. That epiphany may indeed be the center of what is happening as this collective tries to come to some meaning not only with the issues that brought them to Bernard and Vivian, but of what happens between them.

Lula's psychopathic mother goes crazy at the thought of Lula being with Sailor, who just got free from jail. Ignoring Sailor's probation, they set out for California. However their mother hires a killer to hunt down Sailor. Unaware of this, the two enjoy their journey and themselves being together... until they witness a young woman dying after a car accident - a bad omen.

Adèle is a high school student who is beginning to explore herself as a woman. She dates men but finds no satisfaction with them sexually, and is rejected by a female friend who she does desire. She dreams of something more. She meets Emma who is a free spirited girl whom Adèle's friends reject due to her sexuality, and by association most begin to reject Adèle. Her relationship with Emma grows into more than just friends as she is the only person with whom she can express herself openly. Together, Adèle and Emma explore social acceptance, sexuality, and the emotional spectrum of their maturing relationship.

In honor of his late wife who died in a flaming car accident, scientist, Dr. Robert Ledgard, is trying to synthesize the perfect skin which can withstand burns, cuts or any other kind of damage. As he gets closer to perfecting this skin on his flawless patient, the scientific community starts growing skeptical and his past is revealed that shows how his patient is closely linked to tragic events he would like to forget.

Pizza delivery man Victor is having an argument with Elena, whom he met a few days ago, but she was high then and doesn't want to hear about him. Reacting to the noise, two cops, young David and older Sancho, arrive at the scene, the gun accidentally goes off.. Four years later David is a wheelchair basketball star, he's married to Elena, Victor is released out of prison and their destinies begin to cross again.

Nina (Portman) is a ballerina in a New York City ballet company whose life, like all those in her profession, is completely consumed with dance. She lives with her obsessive former ballerina mother Erica (Hershey) who exerts a suffocating control over her. When artistic director Thomas Leroy (Cassel) decides to replace prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Ryder) for the opening production of their new season, Swan Lake, Nina is his first choice. But Nina has competition: a new dancer, Lily (Kunis), who impresses Leroy as well. Swan Lake requires a dancer who can play both the White Swan with innocence and grace, and the Black Swan, who represents guile and sensuality. Nina fits the White Swan role perfectly but Lily is the personification of the Black Swan. As the two young dancers expand their rivalry into a twisted friendship, Nina begins to get more in touch with her dark side - a recklessness that threatens to destroy her.

In a strange world of swords, guns and kimonos, cell phones and cybernetic body parts - a black samurai, Afro Samurai, seeks revenge from a man named Justice who killed his father and also happens to be the #1 fighter in the world. After Afro earns the rank of #2 fighter needed to challenge the #1, he starts his lonely walk to revenge. He faces bounty hunters, bar thugs and fanatical monks - all of whom seem to have clues to the whereabouts of Justice and all of whom covet the position of #2 for themselves. Also along the way we are introduced to Afro's chatty companion - the light hearted Ninja Ninja.

Japanese seinen dōjinshi manga series written and illustrated by manga artist Takashi Okazaki

Join the heroic quest for knowledge as we set course for the stars with the twenty-first century reboot of Cosmos. Hosted by world-renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, this thirteen-part ground-breaking series will venture to new worlds, trace our roots back to the hearts of ancient stars, and travel across the universe for a vision of the cosmos on the grandest scale.

2014 American science documentary television series presented by Neil deGrasse Tyson

Mankind has colonised the stars, yet humanity remains the same desperate and power-hungry species in 2071. A ragtag duo of spacefaring bounty-hunters, Spike Spiegel and Jet Black, struggle to make ends meet living amongst the stars; and things are about to get a hell of a lot more complicated when they adopt the super-dog Ein, persuade the seductive femme-fatale known as Faye Valentine, and the teenage-hacker Edward. These five figures are about to come across things crazier than the crew of the Bebop itself.

1998-1999 Japanese anime television series

Fuu, a waitress who works in a teahouse, rescues two master swordsmen, Mugen and Jin, from their execution to help her find the "samurai who smells of sunflowers."

A well-meaning but struggling writer decides to lead a sort of double life by pretending to be a private detective using the methods he read about in old detective novels.

The Returned opens in a small mountain community which is rocked to its core when several local people who are presumed dead suddenly re-appear at their homes. Despite having passed away some years earlier, these ghostly characters appear in human form, they have not aged, and they are completely unaware of their own fatality. Determined to reclaim their lives and start over, they slowly come to realize that they are not the only ones to have been brought back from the dead. Their return augers torment for their community when a gruesome murder attempt bears a chilling resemblance to the work of a serial killer from the past. This is a homecoming like no other.

French supernatural drama television series

The assorted humiliations, disasters and rare triumphs of four very different twenty-something girls: Hannah, an aspiring writer; Marnie, an art gallery assistant and cousins Jessa and Shoshanna.

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