Emo Nemo

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Evan Shively (Perseus271)

The Color Purple is a classic. With over a million copies sold in the UK alone, it is hailed as one of the all-time 'greats' of literature, inspiring generations of readers.Set in the deep American South between the wars, it is the tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she calls 'father', she has two children taken away from her, is separated from her beloved sister Nettie and is trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets the glamorous Shug Avery, singer and magic-maker - a woman who has taken charge of her own destiny. Gradually, Celie discovers the power and joy of her own spirit, freeing her from her past and reuniting her with those she loves.

In this extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites us to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years.Meet Dolores Price. She's 13, wise-mouthed but wounded, having bid her childhood goodbye. Stranded in front of her bedroom TV, she spends the next few years nourishing herself with the Mallomars, potato chips, and Pepsi her anxious mother supplies. When she finally orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, Dolores is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before she really goes under.

The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it -- from garden seeds to Scripture -- is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

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.

The Odyssey (; Greek: Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia; Attic Greek: [o.dýs.sej.ja]) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still read by contemporary audiences. As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war itself, which lasted ten years, his journey lasts for ten additional years, during which time he encounters many perils and all his crewmates are killed. In his absence, Odysseus is assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must contend with a group of unruly suitors who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage.

War and Peace (pre-reform Russian: Война и миръ; post-reform Russian: Война и мир, romanized: Voyna i mir [vɐjˈna i ˈmʲir]) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published serially, then published in its entirety in 1869. It is regarded as one of Tolstoy's finest literary achievements and remains a classic of world literature.The novel chronicles the French invasion of Russia and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society through the stories of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions of an earlier version, titled The Year 1805, were serialized in The Russian Messenger from 1865 to 1867, then the novel was published in its entirety in 1869.Tolstoy said War and Peace is "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less a historical chronicle." Large sections, especially the later chapters, are philosophical discussions rather than narrative. Tolstoy also said that the best Russian literature does not conform to standards and hence hesitated to call War and Peace a novel. Instead, he regarded Anna Karenina as his first true novel.

Candide is the story of a gentle man who, though pummeled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he lives in "the best of all possible worlds." On the surface a witty, bantering tale, this eighteenth-century classic is actually a savage, satiric thrust at the philosophical optimism that proclaims that all disaster and human suffering is part of a benevolent cosmic plan. Fast, funny, often outrageous, the French philosopher's immortal narrative takes Candide around the world to discover that -- contrary to the teachings of his distinguished tutor Dr. Pangloss -- all is not always for the best. Alive with wit, brilliance, and graceful storytelling, Candide has become Voltaire's most celebrated work.

Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace. Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles, winner of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic. He maintains the drive and metric music of Homer’s poetry, and evokes the impact and nuance of the Iliad’s mesmerizing repeated phrases in what Peter Levi calls “an astonishing performance.”

Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U.S., and is said to have "helped lay the groundwork for the [American] Civil War".

Robert M. Pirsig's Zen &amp; the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an examination of how we live, a meditation on how to live better set around the narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's Northwest, undertaken by a father &amp; his young son.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology and displaying all of the brilliance that made The Tipping Point a classic, Blink changes the way you'll understand every decision you make. Never again will you think about thinking the same way.Malcolm Gladwell redefined how we understand the world around us. Now, in Blink, he revolutionizes the way we understand the world within. Blink is a book about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that actually aren't as simple as they seem. Why are some people brilliant decision makers, while others are consistently inept? Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? How do our brains really work - in the office, in the classroom, in the kitchen, and in the bedroom? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others? In Blink we meet the psychologist who has learned to predict whether a marriage will last, based on a few minutes of observing a couple; the tennis coach who knows when a player will double-fault before the racket even makes contact with the ball; the antiquities experts who recognize a fake at a glance. Here, too, are great failures of "blink": the election of Warren Harding; "New Coke"; and the shooting of Amadou Diallo by police. Blink reveals that great decision makers aren't those who process the most information or spend the most time deliberating, but those who have perfected the art of "thin-slicing" - filtering the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables.

The Elements of Style is an American English writing style guide in numerous editions. The original was composed by William Strunk Jr. in 1918, and published by Harcourt in 1920, comprising eight "elementary rules of usage", ten "elementary principles of composition", "a few matters of form", a list of 49 "words and expressions commonly misused", and a list of 57 "words often misspelled". E. B. White greatly enlarged and revised the book for publication by Macmillan in 1959. That was the first edition of the so-called Strunk & White, which Time named in 2011 as one of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since 1923.Cornell University English professor William Strunk Jr. wrote The Elements of Style in 1918 and privately published it in 1919, for use at the university. (Harcourt republished it in 52-page format in 1920.) He and editor Edward A. Tenney later revised it for publication as The Elements and Practice of Composition (1935). In 1957 the style guide reached the attention of E.B. White at The New Yorker. White had studied writing under Strunk in 1919 but had since forgotten "the little book" that he described as a "forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English". Weeks later, White wrote a feature story about Strunk's devotion to lucid English prose.

Sometimes what seems most fragile, can't be broken.\
  Stella\
Poe Halliday was an accident. A chance meeting that changed my life forever.My mother didn't have secrets; her secrets had her. After she disappeared, I had nothing.Or so I thought.When the invitation arrived, the opportunity to learn about my mother's past was too great to pass up. I knew I was taking a risk, but I craved answers.Now the dark history of this town threatens to tear me apart.It's all about him.I knew this was a mistake.\
  Poe\
Stella Bradleigh was a distraction. Something to play with when my shadows got too dark.I spent my entire existence forced to live a life I didn't want. There was only one way out.Or so I thought.Meeting the beautiful stranger with the mysterious past, I thought she would be a good time, and then I could just throw her away.Instead, she consumed me, and now she's made me question everything I know to be real in my life.It's all about her.I knew I was a mistake.★ Fragile Things is the first book in Poe and Stella's story and the first book in the Folkestone Sins series. This is a dark, mature high school/new adult romance. It contains situations and flashbacks that may trigger some readers, language that may be offensive, and scenes of a sexual nature (all consensual).

Wilde had to live his life twice over, first in slow motion, then at top speed. During the first period he was a scapegrace, during the second a scapegoat. Richard Ellmann’s superlative bio ranks alongside the finest in the genre, with his earlier James Joyce volume already firmly in the pantheon. From Wilde’s unhumble beginnings as the son of two reputable writers, to his college days in the thrall of Ruskin and Pater, to his flowerings as a poet and spokesman for aestheticism, Ellmann presents the working Wilde, a complex contrarian and sneak-tongued snark, as he slowly becomes Wilde the Myth and Wilde the Wit. Parodied and pilloried since he first dared to lecture in knee-breeches, Wilde was always swatting enemies away and poking their hypocrarses, and as his career picked up traction, the vultures suppurated on the sidelines until the blood-axe dropped on the sweaty mattress of boneheaded bastard Bosie. Ellmann writes powerfully about Wilde’s trial and incarceration. The particularity of detail is breathtaking and presented always as a coherent, flowing and utterly captivating narrative, and when Wilde emerges from Reading into the beautiful and disgusting world, into a life of humiliation, penury, skin problems, loneliness, and separation in exile, you would need a heart of stone not to laugh at the preposterous imbecilities of the society Wilde was spoofing. The harsh brainless stupidity of Victorian England collapsed, and Wilde is remembered rightly as an avatar for truth, kindness, and zingy one-liners for every occasion. This fabulously exhaustive and definitive bio has the last word on Wilde, and since no one is ever likely to top it, is essential reading for all Oscarites.

A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep. Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote his ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right.

Named for the twelfth night after Christmas, the end of the Christmas season, Twelfth Night plays with love and power. The Countess Olivia, a woman with her own household, attracts Duke (or Count) Orsino. Two other would-be suitors are her pretentious steward, Malvolio, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.Onto this scene arrive the twins Viola and Sebastian; caught in a shipwreck, each thinks the other has drowned. Viola disguises herself as a male page and enters Orsino’s service. Orsino sends her as his envoy to Olivia—only to have Olivia fall in love with the messenger. The play complicates, then wonderfully untangles, these relationships.

The 4-Hour Body: An Uncommon Guide to Rapid Fat-Loss, Incredible Sex, and Becoming Superhuman is a nonfiction book by American writer Tim Ferriss. It was published by Crown Publishing Group in 2010. It focuses on diet, with chapters on exercise, sleep, and sexual performance. It debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List and spent three weeks in the top 3. The book attracted some controversy for its claims.Ferriss said that he spent three years interviewing over 200 people, from doctors to athletes to black-market drug salesmen, in preparing the book.The book advocates the 'Slow-carb Diet', which is characterised around three main points: eat a very simple set of meals repeatedly, focus on 'slow carbs', and allow one 'cheat day' a week when all foods are allowed. The diet involves the elimination of starches and anything sweet (including fruit and all artificial sweeteners) and a strong preference for lean protein and a few specific vegetables.

Readers and audiences have long greeted As You Like It with delight. Its characters are brilliant conversationalists, including the princesses Rosalind and Celia and their Fool, Touchstone. Soon after Rosalind and Orlando meet and fall in love, the princesses and Touchstone go into exile in the Forest of Arden, where they find new conversational partners. Duke Frederick, younger brother to Duke Senior, has overthrown his brother and forced him to live homeless in the forest with his courtiers, including the cynical Jaques. Orlando, whose older brother Oliver plotted his death, has fled there, too.Recent scholars have also grounded the play in the issues of its time. These include primogeniture, passing property from a father to his oldest son. As You Like It depicts intense conflict between brothers, exposing the human suffering that primogeniture entails. Another perspective concerns cross-dressing. Most of Orlando’s courtship of Rosalind takes place while Rosalind is disguised as a man, “Ganymede.” At her urging, Orlando pretends that Ganymede is his beloved Rosalind. But as the epilogue reveals, the sixteenth-century actor playing Rosalind was male, following the practice of the time. In other words, a boy played a girl playing a boy pretending to be a girl.

Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America. Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, American Gods takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what - and who - it finds there...This is the author's preferred text, never before published in the UK, and is about 12,000 words longer than the previous UK edition.

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

Throw an impromptu party anywhere with anyone thanks to a new play style in which players look at each other—not the screen. Bring the action and fun into the...

New Evolution of Mario Sandbox-Style Gameplay. Mario embarks on a new journey through unknown worlds, running and jumping through huge 3D worlds in the first sa...

Search for the ultimate paradise, Elysium, with your companion, Pyra. Explore an endless ocean of clouds, where the last remnants of civilization live on the...

A new Mario Tennis game is bringing a new level of skill and competition to Nintendo Switch. Mario steps onto the court in classy tennis garb for intense rallie...

The first fighting game of its kind. Choose a fighting champion from around the world, equip your own combination of extendable arms, and then use a mix of butt...

Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition, more commonly known as Pokémon Yellow Version or Pokémon Yellow, is a 1998 role-playing video game developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy. It is an enhanced version of Pokémon Red and Blue and is part of the first generation of the Pokémon video game series. It was first released in Japan on September 12, 1998, in Australia and North America in 1999 and in Europe in 2000. Along with the release of Pokémon Yellow, a special edition yellow Pokémon-themed Game Boy Color was also released. Pokémon Yellow is loosely based on the anime.Remakes of Pokémon Yellow, titled Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, were released for the Nintendo Switch in 2018, the 20th anniversary of Yellow's release in Japan.

Catan, previously known as The Settlers of Catan or simply Settlers, is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) as Die Siedler von Catan. Players take on the roles of settlers, each attempting to build and develop holdings while trading and acquiring resources. Players gain points as their settlements grow; the first to reach a set number of points, typically 10, wins. The game and its many expansions are also published by Catan Studio, Filosofia, GP, Inc., 999 Games, Κάισσα, and Devir.The Settlers of Catan became one of the first German-style board games to achieve popularity outside Europe. As of 2015, more than 22 million copies in 30 languages had been sold.

Munchkin is a dedicated deck card game by Steve Jackson Games, written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Kovalic. It is a humorous take on role-playing games, based on the concept of munchkins (immature role-players, playing only to "win" by having the most powerful character possible).Munchkin won the 2001 Origins Award for Best Traditional Card Game, and is itself a spin-off of The Munchkin's Guide to Powergaming, a gaming humor book which also won an Origins Award in 2000.After the success of the original Munchkin game several expansion packs and sequels were published. Now available in 15 different languages, Munchkin accounted for more than 70% of the 2007 sales for Steve Jackson Games.

Cards Against Humanity is an adult party game in which players complete fill-in-the-blank statements, using words or phrases typically deemed offensive, risqué, or politically incorrect, printed on playing cards. It has been compared to the earlier card game Apples to Apples (1999).

Mini Metro is a strategy simulation game about designing a subway map for a growing city. Draw lines between stations and start your trains running. Keep your l...

Pokémon is a series of video games developed by Game Freak and published by Nintendo and The Pokémon Company under the Pokémon media franchise. It was created by Satoshi Tajiri with assistance from Ken Sugimori, the first games, Pocket Monsters Red and Green, released in 1996 in Japan for the Game Boy, later released outside of Japan as Pokémon Red and Blue. The main series of role-playing video games (RPGs), referred as the "core series" by their developers, have continued on each generation of Nintendo's handhelds. The most recently released core series game, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, was released on January 28, 2022, for the Nintendo Switch. It is a prequel to the 2006 Nintendo DS games Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.

Los Santos is a vast, sun-soaked metropolis full of self-help gurus, starlets and once-important, formerly-known-as celebrities. The city was once the envy of t...

Super Mario (also known as Super Mario Bros. and Mario) is a platform game series created by Nintendo starring their mascot, Mario. It is the central series of the greater Mario franchise. At least one Super Mario game has been released for every major Nintendo video game console. There are more than 20 games in the series.The Super Mario games are set primarily in the fictional Mushroom Kingdom, typically with Mario as the player character. He is usually joined by his brother, Luigi, and often by other members of the Mario cast. As platform games, they involve the player character running and jumping across platforms and atop enemies in themed levels. The games have simple plots, typically with Mario and Luigi rescuing the kidnapped Princess Peach from the primary antagonist, Bowser. The first game in the series, Super Mario Bros., released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985, established the series' core gameplay concepts and elements. These include a multitude of power-ups and items that give the character special powers such as fireball-throwing and size-changing.

Barbie is a multi-platform video game developed by Imagineering for Hi Tech Expressions. It is based on Mattel Inc.'s doll of the same name and was created in an attempt to get more girls to play video games. As such, it is one of the few explicitly girl-oriented NES games. The game takes place in a dream where Barbie must travel through three different worlds to gather accessories before attending a ball to meet Ken. Despite it having been of little interest to typical gamers at the time of its release, critics including staff writers for Velikij Drakon and Allgame have praised it as "not bad" for a generic platformer. Others including Justine Cassell and Nathanael Ng of the Georgia Institute of Technology have advanced the view that its genre is not appropriate for its content.

Criminal Case is a detective-themed hidden object game released on November 15, 2012 for Facebook. An iOS version was released worldwide on August 28, 2014, followed by an Android version on April 15, 2015. In 2018, the Facebook version was converted from Adobe Flash to HTML5. Developed and published by French indie studio Pretty Simple, Criminal Case has over ten million average monthly users. On December 9, 2013, Criminal Case was crowned the Facebook Game of the Year 2013.Pretty Simple was founded in 2010 by partners Bastien Cazenave and Corentin Raux and was backed by Idinvest Partners. Idenvest originally put up €300,000 in seed capital, which was followed by another €2.5 million after the game achieved a level of early modest success. The murder investigation theme was chosen first by the developers, who decided to make the game in the Hidden Object genre due to it making both business and personal sense. Just two months after the games launch, it had 1 million Daily Active Users. As of mid-2013, Criminal Case attracted more than ten million monthly average users and became highly competitive with Candy Crush Saga, the most popular game on Facebook with over 46 million average monthly users. The developers explained in late 2013: "To put out an investigation each week, there's almost 30 people working on it. We have writers and artists just really working hard to put out this content." On December 4, 2013, the game achieved over 100 million users. Five days later, Criminal Case won the Facebook Game of the Year 2013 award. By this time the episodes had been translated into nine languages, and they were making an 8-digit sum of revenue. The game has a 40-percent share of Facebook users. Some reasons cited for the game's success include its graphic crime scenes and meaningful narratives. 2017 research by United Worldwide found that 80% of the active players are women aged between 30 and 55. Six additional titles, Criminal Case: Pacific Bay, Criminal Case: Save the World!, Criminal Case: Mysteries of the Past, Criminal Case: The Conspiracy, Criminal Case: Travel in Time and Criminal Case: Supernatural Investigations were launched.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a board game published by Avalon Hill in 2004, designed by Bruce Glassco and developed by Rob Daviau, Bill McQuillan, Mike Selinker, and Teeuwynn Woodruff. Players all begin as allies exploring a haunted house filled with dangers, traps, items, and omens. As players journey to new parts of the mansion, room tiles are chosen at random and placed on the game board; this means that the game is different each session. Eventually the "haunt" begins, with the nature and plot of this session's ghost story revealed; one player usually "betrays" the others and takes the side of the ghosts, monsters, or other enemies, while the remaining players collaborate to defeat them.

Master strategy in the medieval world! In the classic board game Carcassonne, the medieval countryside thrives as you and your opponents place tiles and complet...

Arkham Horroris a cooperative adventure board game for 2-8 players designed by Richard Launius, originally published in 1987 by Chaosium. The game is based on Chaosium's roleplaying gameCall of Cthulhu, which is set in the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and other horror writers. The game was revised and reprinted by Fantasy Flight Games in 2005.The game board is set in Lovecraft's fictional Massachusetts town of Arkham in 1926. Street, building and outdoor locations are featured. Gates to other planes open throughout the town (represented by tokens placed on the board.) Players take on the role of investigators, represented by a character card. Each investigator has several attributes (such as "sanity"), and cards representing items, spells, and other things. The investigators travel through the city, avoiding or fighting the monsters that enter through the gates, visiting city locations to acquire tools, and ultimately entering the gates. After traveling to the other world and returning, the investigator can try to close the gate. While exploring city locations or other worlds, the investigators face random events which may benefit or harm them. As gates open, a "Doom Track" advances; if the track reaches its end, a powerful horrific creature known as the Ancient One breaks through into Arkham. In the 1987 edition of the game, this ends the game, and all players lose. In the 2005 edition, this (in most cases) begins an endgame in which the players have a small chance to defeat the creature and win; otherwise they lose.

Ticket to Ride is a railway-themed German-style board game designed by Alan R. Moon. It was illustrated by Julien Delval and Cyrille Daujean and published in 2004 by Days of Wonder. The game is also known as Zug um Zug (German), Les Aventuriers du Rail (French), Aventureros al Tren (Spanish), Wsiąść do pociągu (Polish), and Menolippu (Finnish).

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

A mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter's murder when they fail to catch the culprit.

A sole survivor tells of the twisty events leading up to a horrific gun battle on a boat, which began when five criminals met at a seemingly random police lineup.

1995 German-American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Bryan Singer

The story of Eddie Edwards, the notoriously tenacious British underdog ski jumper who charmed the world at the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Memento is a 2000 American neo-noir psychological thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, based on the 2001 short story "Memento Mori" by Jonathan Nolan. Guy Pearce stars as Leonard Shelby, a man who suffers from anterograde amnesia, resulting in short-term memory loss and the inability to form new memories. He searches for the people who attacked him, raped and killed his wife, using an elaborate system of Polaroid photographs, handwritten notes, and tattoos to track information he won't remember. Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe Pantoliano co-stars in the film.The film's non-linear narrative is presented as two different sequences of scenes interspersed during the film: a series in black-and-white that is shown chronologically, and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order (simulating for the audience the mental state of the protagonist). The two sequences meet at the end of the film, producing one complete and cohesive narrative.

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

Johnny Blaze, tortured by the Ghost Rider's curse, gets a chance of redemption through protecting the Devil's son, whose father is pursuing him.

2012 film by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor

A young woman, studying to be a vet, develops a craving for human flesh.

When a mysterious woman seduces Dominic Toretto into the world of terrorism and a betrayal of those closest to him, the crew face trials that will test them as never before.

A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in space in an attempt to ensure humanity's survival.

2014 British-American science fiction film directed by Christopher Nolan

The Star Wars saga continues as new heroes and galactic legends go on an epic adventure, unlocking mysteries of the Force and shocking revelations of the past.

2017 American epic space opera film directed by Rian Johnson

In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.

1995 American science fiction film by Terry Gilliam

Two detectives, a rookie and a veteran, hunt a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his motives.

1995 neo-noir crime thriller film by David Fincher

An orphaned boy enrolls in a school of wizardry, where he learns the truth about himself, his family and the terrible evil that haunts the magical world.

2001 British-American fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus

With the help of a German bounty-hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal plantation-owner in Mississippi.

An undercover cop and a mole in the police attempt to identify each other while infiltrating an Irish gang in South Boston.

2006 American crime thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese

The lives of three men who were childhood friends are shattered when one of them has a family tragedy.

2003 American drama film directed by Clint Eastwood

Based on the story of Micky Ward, a fledgling boxer who tries to escape the shadow of his more famous but troubled older boxing brother and get his own shot at greatness.

2010 biographical sports drama film directed by David O. Russell

Stranded at a desolate Nevada motel during a nasty rain storm, ten strangers become acquainted with each other when they realize that they're being killed off one by one.

A woman conceives twins through artificial insemination, then meets the man of her dreams on the very same day.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as "the White Album"). It was written by George Harrison, the band's lead guitarist. The song serves as a comment on the disharmony within the Beatles following their return from studying Transcendental Meditation in India in early 1968. This lack of camaraderie was reflected in the band's initial apathy towards the composition, which Harrison countered by inviting his friend and occasional collaborator, Eric Clapton, to contribute to the recording. Clapton overdubbed a lead guitar part, although he was not formally credited for his contribution.Harrison wrote "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" as an exercise in randomness inspired by the Chinese I Ching. The song conveys his dismay at the world's unrealised potential for universal love, which he refers to as "the love there that's sleeping". Harrison first recorded it with a sparse backing of acoustic guitar and harmonium – a version that appeared on the 1996 Anthology 3 outtakes compilation and, with the addition of a string arrangement by George Martin, on the Love soundtrack album in 2006. The full group recording was made in September 1968, at which point the song's folk-based musical arrangement was replaced by a production in the heavy rock style. The recording was one of several collaborations between Harrison and Clapton during the late 1960s and was followed by the pair co-writing the song "Badge" for Clapton's group Cream.

Comedy Bang! Bang! is a weekly comedy audio podcast, which originally began airing as a radio show on May 1, 2009. Popularly known as Humanity's Podcast, it is hosted by writer and comedian Scott Aukerman, best known for his work on the 1990s HBO sketch comedy program Mr. Show with Bob and David, creating and hosting the Comedy Bang! Bang! TV series, and co-founding the weekly Comedy Death-Ray stage show at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Hollywood.

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

As Alfred the Great defends his kingdom from Norse invaders, Uhtred - born a Saxon but raised by Vikings - seeks to claim his ancestral birthright.

A sci-fi anthology series with stand-alone episodes based on the works of Philip K. Dick.

science fiction television anthology series based on the works of Philip K. Dick

A New York music executive in the 1970s hustles to make a career out of the city's diverse music scene.

Geralt of Rivia, a solitary monster hunter, struggles to find his place in a world where people often prove more wicked than beasts.

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.

The series follows Adrian Monk, a brilliant former San Francisco detective, who now consults the police as a private consultant who battles with an obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Finding out that their husbands are not just work partners, but have also been romantically involved for the last twenty years, two women with an already strained relationship try to cope with the circumstances together.

American comedy-drama web television series

The Roy family is known for controlling the biggest media and entertainment company in the world. However, their world changes when their father steps down from the company.

A dark dramedy about a progressive Portlandian family made up of husband, wife, three adopted children from Liberia, Vietnam and Colombia, and one biological daughter, who find their sanity tested and values challenged in 2018 Americ

American television dark comedy-drama series created by Alan Ball

A forensic neuro-psychiatrist reluctantly enters a dangerous and violent world of mistaken identity, police corruption and mental illness.

An intersection between reality and unconscious thought, follow three strangers who slowly realize that they are dreaming parts of a bigger, more sinister tragedy.

American supernatural drama television series

Three suburban mothers suddenly find themselves in desperate circumstances and decide to stop playing it safe and risk everything to take their power back.

American crime comedy-drama television series

Follows the struggle of Richard Hendricks, a Silicon Valley engineer trying to build his own company called Pied Piper.

After a series of events, the lives of a security operative and an assassin become inextricably linked.

A group of single parents form their own support system as they raise their kids and struggle to start new relationships.

The trials and tribulations of criminal lawyer Jimmy McGill in the time before he established his strip-mall law office in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Emmy Award-winning, 11 episodes, five years in the making, the most expensive nature documentary series ever commissioned by the BBC, and the first to be filmed in high definition.

The absurd antics of an Indiana town's public officials as they pursue sundry projects to make their city a better place.

Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it.

Gbolabo Adetunji 

Some biographies and autobiographies read better than fiction. There are some truly amazing people with unbelievable stories in the world, here are ten of the best ones that have been committed to paper.

A tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that, despite its profound flaws, gave the author the fiery determination to carve out a succe

Librarian's Note: An alternate cover edition can be found hereIn April, 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alo

Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of

A deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more 

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