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I recently went to Las Vegas for the first, and probably only, time in my life. I hadn't read this book in years, and previously, it hadn't even been my favorite Hunter S. Thompson work. Thompson is dearly missed by many people, and on a personal level, I miss him deeply. He spoke to a true astonishment at the complete, unrelenting fuckedupedness of America and her politics, and he did it with a bite that was deserved and unmatched. He probably could have been a very rich super-novelist of popular, uninspired filth. He probably could have been a brilliant novelist of any kind. But he chose to do what he did, and he did it better than any of his generation. Like Mark Twain, he chronicled American stupidity in the tongue of his generation, and he captured it perfectly, from the insanity of the drug experience to the depravity of American politics. For years, no work of his stood out to me as much as Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 or the Gonzo letters. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, to me, wasn't his best work. Then I went to Vegas. Suddenly, all the subtle differences between this and his other work made sense, and I realized that he had captured the true tackiness of the truest tacky city on the entire planet (though Dubai with their fucking Island fantasies are likely to take over soon). Fear &amp; Loathing in Las Vegas IS Las Vegas. It's a nightmare, a joke, a blunder of comical, cosmically-fucked proportions. It's not Sin City. It's where Sin goes to die when it's embarrassed for itself. It's where families go on vacations with ten-year-olds, children who get handed fliers for prostitutes. It's the living, pulsing, filthing embodiment of the Holy Dollar. It's sensory overload on a scale drugs can't equal, a place where you almost have to take a brimful of Valium and a pint of ether to feel normal and not feel utterly ashamed at the state of the human condition. It would make you want to blow your brains out if it weren't so goddamned fun, even if you're gay, you hate gambling and hookers make your brain itch. Yet you never, ever feel like it is evil or subversive or curious in any way. It's just about a buck, and every other blink reminds you of it. This is a place where Hunter S. Thompson could easily mingle with a law enforcement convention and not get noticed. This is a place where a lawyer could leave you with a hotel bill. This is a place where no questions get asked because no answers would make sense, and the only thing profound about any of it is that you know, on a gut level, that all the oil used to produce all the plastic used to build that city no doubt funded an island shaped like Australia that was built off the coast of the UAE over the weekend. This novel will never cease to be important, and one day, as a cultural artifact of a forgotten culture from a forgotten nation, it will be one of the most important anthropological pieces in existence. I wish he'd survived the Bush administration. We need this man.NC

Austrian playwright and novelist (1931-1989)

Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs."Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's tragicomic tale, A Confederacy of Dunces. This 30-year-old medievalist lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bound for Baton Rouge. ("Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss.") But Ignatius's quiet life of tyrannizing his mother and writing his endless comparative history screeches to a halt when he is almost arrested by the overeager Patrolman Mancuso--who mistakes him for a vagrant--and then involved in a car accident with his tipsy mother behind the wheel. One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Ignatius is out pounding the pavement in search of a job.Over the next several hundred pages, our hero stumbles from one adventure to the next. His stint as a hotdog vendor is less than successful, and he soon turns his employers at the Levy Pants Company on their heads. Ignatius's path through the working world is populated by marvelous secondary characters: the stripper Darlene and her talented cockatoo; the septuagenarian secretary Miss Trixie, whose desperate attempts to retire are constantly, comically thwarted; gay blade Dorian Greene; sinister Miss Lee, proprietor of the Night of Joy nightclub; and Myrna Minkoff, the girl Ignatius loves to hate. The many subplots that weave through A Confederacy of Dunces are as complicated as anything you'll find in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end. But it is Ignatius--selfish, domineering, and deluded, tragic and comic and larger than life--who carries the story. He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. His fragility cracks the shell of comic bluster, revealing a deep streak of melancholy beneath the antic humor. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969 and never saw the publication of his novel. Ignatius Reilly is what he left behind, a fitting memorial to a talented and tormented life.

Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions is a non-fiction book by Randall Munroe in which the author answers hypothetical science questions sent to him by readers of his webcomic, xkcd. The book contains a selection of questions and answers originally published on his blog What If?, along with several new ones. The book is divided into several dozen chapters, most of which are devoted to answering a unique question. What If? was released in September 2, 2014 and was received positively by critics.In the introduction section of the book, Randall Munroe recounts wondering as a child whether "there were more hard things or soft things in the world", concluding that "the world contained about three billion soft things and five billion hard things". The conversation that was produced by this question impressed Munroe's mother to such a degree that she wrote it down. Though Munroe later stated that his question was rather meaningless, he used it as an example of how "thoroughly answer[ing] a stupid question can take you to some pretty interesting places".

Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, for fifteen-year-old Christopher everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning. He lives on patterns, rules, and a diagram kept in his pocket. Then one day, a neighbor's dog, Wellington, is killed and his carefully constructive universe is threatened. Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favourite (logical) detective, Sherlock Holmes. What follows makes for a novel that is funny, poignant and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing are a mind that perceives the world entirely literally.

Alternate-cover edition can be found here In his second collection, Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated and beloved short-story writers in American literature—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark.

1981 short story collection by Raymond Carver

The last days of colonialism taught America’s revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result, our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But according to investigative reporter Radley Balko, over the last several decades, America’s cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as an other—an enemy.Today’s armored-up policemen are a far cry from the constables of early America. The unrest of the 1960s brought about the invention of the SWAT unit—which in turn led to the debut of military tactics in the ranks of police officers. Nixon’s War on Drugs, Reagan’s War on Poverty, Clinton’s COPS program, the post–9/11 security state under Bush and Obama: by degrees, each of these innovations expanded and empowered police forces, always at the expense of civil liberties. And these are just four among a slew of reckless programs.In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians’ ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative shows how over a generation, a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.

The top-secret world that the government created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has become so enormous, so unwieldy, and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or exactly how many agencies duplicate work being done elsewhere. The result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe may be putting us in greater danger. In Top Secret America, award-winning reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin uncover the enormous size, shape, mission, and consequences of this invisible universe of over 1,300 government facilities in every state in America; nearly 2,000 outside companies used as contractors; and more than 850,000 people granted "Top Secret" security clearance.  A landmark exposé of a new, secret "Fourth Branch" of American government, Top Secret America is a tour de force of investigative reporting-and a book sure to spark national and international alarm.

From the author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, comes an exposé of international corruption, and an inspired plan to turn the tide for future generationsWith a presidential election around the corner, questions of America's military buildup, environmental impact, and foreign policy are on everyone's mind. Former Economic Hit Man John Perkins goes behind the scenes of the current geopolitical crisis and offers bold solutions to our most pressing problems. Drawing on interviews with other EHMs, jackals, CIA operatives, reporters, businessmen, and activists, Perkins reveals the secret history of events that have created the current American Empire, including: How the defeats in Vietnam and Iraq have benefited big businessThe role of Israel as Fortress America in the Middle EastTragic repercussions of the IMF's Asian Economic CollapseThe current Latin American revolution and its lessons for democracyU.S. blunders in Tibet, Congo, Lebanon, and VenezuelaFrom the U.S. military in Iraq to infrastructure development in Indonesia, from Peace Corps volunteers in Africa to jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes a conspiracy of corruption that has fueled instability and anti-Americanism around the globe, with consequences reflected in our daily headlines. Having raised the alarm, Perkins passionately addresses how Americans can work to create a more peaceful and stable world for future generations. 

It’s 1990. Apartheid is crumbling. Nelson Mandela has just been released from prison. And Spud Milton—thirteen-year-old, prepubescent choirboy extraordinaire—is about to start his first year at an elite boys-only boarding school in South Africa. Cursed with embarrassingly dysfunctional parents, a senile granny named Wombat, and a wild obsession for Julia Roberts, Spud has his hands full trying to adapt to his new home. Armed with only his wits and his diary, Spud takes readers of all ages on a rowdy boarding school romp full of illegal midnight swims, raging hormones, and catastrophic holidays that will leave the entire family in total hysterics and thirsty for more. Winner of South Africa’s Booksellers’ Choice Award 2006

When Jack Kerouac’s On the Road first appeared in 1957, readers instantly felt the beat of a new literary rhythm. A fictionalised account of his own journeys across America with his friend Neal Cassady, Kerouac’s beatnik odyssey captured the soul of a generation and changed the landscape of American fiction for ever.Influenced by Jack London and Thomas Wolfe, Kerouac always wanted to be a writer, but his true voice only emerged when he wrote about his own experiences in On the Road. Leaving a broken marriage behind him, Sal Paradise (Kerouac) joins Dean Moriarty (Cassady), a tearaway and former reform school boy, on a series of journeys that takes them from New York to San Francisco, then south to Mexico. Hitching rides and boarding buses, they enter a world of hobos and drifters, fruit-pickers and migrant families, small towns and wide horizons. Adrift from conventional society, they experience America in the raw: a place where living is hard, but ‘life is holy and every moment is precious’.With its smoky, jazz-filled atmosphere and its restless, yearning spirit of adventure, On the Road left its mark on the culture of the late 20th century, influencing countless books, films and songs. Kerouac’s prose is remarkable both for its colloquial swing and for the pure lyricism inspired by the American landscape – ‘the backroads, the black-tar roads that curve among the mournful rivers like Susquehanna, Monongahela, old Potomac and Monocacy’. This Folio Society edition is illustrated with evocative photographs of Kerouac and the landscapes of 1950s America. Now acknowledged as a modern classic, On the Road remains a thrilling and poignant story of the road less travelled.

In Bryson's biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.

The Power Of Myth launched an extraordinary resurgence of interest in Joseph Campbell and his work. A preeminent scholar, writer, and teacher, he has had a profound influence on millions of people. To him, mythology was the "song of the universe, the music of the spheres." With Bill Moyers, one of America's most prominent journalists, as his thoughtful and engaging interviewer, The Power Of Myth touches on subjects from modern marriage to virgin births, from Jesus to John Lennon, offering a brilliant combination of intelligence and wit.

In his blistering new novel, Cormac McCarthy returns to the Texas-Mexico border, the setting of his famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. One day, Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law–in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell–can contain.As Moss tries to evade his pursuers–in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives–McCarthy simultaneously strips down the American crime novel and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines. No Country for Old Men is a triumph.

Livin' la Vivo Coca!This was my second reading of this rambunctious book. I pored over it quite a while back, not realising that it was just one part of a trilogy, duh!(Kinda doesn't matter anyway).Following in the footsteps of Gabriel García Márquez, de Bernières' delightful brand of magical realism is a joy to behold.Set in a fictional South American country (imagine Colombia), the author introduces us to Señor Vivo, a philosophising intellectual who imagines he can take on murderous drug cartels by writing condemnatory letters to a national newspaper. This, of course, is a farcical endeavour, but such is the timbre of this outlandish story.Hip, hip hooray, for de Bernières' luxuriant imagination, which he uses to great effect, creating a madcap tale of spellbinding exuberance and artistic lunacy.Hold onto your asientos, for the author has organised a fiesta of assassinations, hallucinations and sweaty assignations. Thrown into the mix is an uproarious whorehouse brawl that Tarantino would dearly wish he had imagined first.And there is genius in de Bernières' ability to create voluminous environs in our minds, using only a handful of words. He describes a shanty town where 'cats were not philosophical and elegant, but scabby and dishonest.' In my mind, such descriptive imagery is ¡maravilloso!I once more declare my admiration for Louis de Bernières. The man was born to write.

This is the type of book I really relish: Epic, with myriad POVs &amp;, therefore, too, a plethora of characters: satirical, tragicomic. How can somebody possibly populate this South American Question Mark of a Town? de Bernieres is on the same line as Tolkien and John Kennedy Toole-- his characters are fleshy and complicated. The war is fought at many angles and everybody has a part to play.Don Emmanuel makes a "Queen-Elizabeth-in-"Shakespeare in Love""-like cameo (Dame Judy Dench... in all her splendor), &amp; yet his name is bestowed upon the title; not Remedios, the Guevaraesque woman, the main revolutionary, nor her fellow guerillas (all of which are underdogs and Suffer, yet constantly fight for freedom as in all the best of narratives). It is not "Dona Costanza's Sexual Awakening". It is not "Holocaust in the Tropics". It has a silly, quirky title, and it is exactly this: a silly, quirky novel. It is also relevant, it is bittersweet, it is complex. It is more than one thinks it is. It would fit perfectly with "Slumdog"... dead serious, yet heartfelt to the nth degree (the atrocious rapes and killings are dispersed among vignettes of intense happiness and the unification of native peoples).There is also the clever prose, the important pseudo-irrelevancies, the constant flights of fancy. De Bernieres obviously has much fun inventing.Gabriel Garcia Marquez is serious and poignant; this more modern storyteller has a larger sense of humor and takes a less direct approach with symbolism; the population of the little besieged town is all of a sudden plagued with cats: the townspeople care about them and integrate them into their rural lives. The cats then become panthers... though there is an obvious exodus, there is, too, a return to a mother land. Oh yes- &amp; according to the Santa figure that is the jolly Don Emmanuel, a cure for the war is... yes, sex. How more simple can it get in its complexity?

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Corelli's Mandolin, alternatively called Captain Corelli's Mandolin, is a 1993 novel written by Louis de Bernires which takes place on the island of Cephallonia (Kefalonia) during the Italian and German occupation of World War II. The main characters are Antonio Corelli, an Italian captain, and Pelagia, the daughter of the local physician, Dr. Iannis. An important event in the novel is the massacre of Italian troops by the Germans in September 1943.

Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ...Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to humankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh...

The novel is set during World War II, from 1942 to 1944. It mainly follows the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Most of the events in the book occur while the fictional 256th Squadron is based on the island of Pianosa, in the Mediterranean Sea, west of Italy. The novel looks into the experiences of Yossarian and the other airmen in the camp, who attempt to maintain their sanity while fulfilling their service requirements so that they may return home.

The latest game in the post-nuclear RPG series is being developed by many members of the Fallout 1 and 2 team at Obsidian Entertainment using the Fallout 3 eng...

[Metacritic's 2008 PC Game of the Year] Vault-Tec engineers have worked around the clock on an interactive reproduction of Wasteland life for you to enjoy from...

It's been 80 long years since your ancestor trod across the wastelands. As you search for the Garden of Eden Creation Kit to save your primitive village, your p...

Set in the aftermath of a world-wide nuclear war, Fallout will challenge you to survive in an unknown and dangerous world. You will take the role of a Vault-dwe...

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).

Sid Meier's Civilization is a 1991 turn-based strategy 4X video game developed and published by MicroProse. The game was originally developed for MS-DOS running on a PC, and has undergone numerous revisions for various platforms. The player is tasked with leading an entire human civilization over the course of several millennia by controlling various areas such as urban development, exploration, government, trade, research, and military. The player can control individual units and advance the exploration, conquest and settlement of the game's world. The player can also make such decisions as setting forms of government, tax rates and research priorities. The player's civilization is in competition with other computer-controlled civilizations, with which the player can enter diplomatic relationships that can either end in alliances or lead to war.

In 2006-2007 a group of investors bet against the US mortgage market. In their research, they discover how flawed and corrupt the market is.

2015 American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Adam McKay

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

The adventures of high school and junior high students on the last day of school in May 1976.

An examination of the machinations behind the scenes at a real estate office.

1992 American drama directed by James Foley

A collection of expertly photographed phenomena with no conventional plot. The footage focuses on nature, humanity and the relationship between them.

A day in the life of Austin, Texas as the camera roams from place to place and provides a brief look at the overeducated, the social misfits, the outcasts and the oddballs.

After his girlfriend ditches him for a boorish ski jock, Lane decides that suicide is the only answer. However, his increasingly inept attempts bring him only more agony and embarrassment. Filled with the wildest teen nightmares.

As a new threat to the galaxy rises, Rey, a desert scavenger, and Finn, an ex-stormtrooper, must join Han Solo and Chewbacca to search for the one hope of restoring peace.

Spinal Tap, one of England's loudest bands, is chronicled by film director Marty DiBergi on what proves to be a fateful tour.

A group of inept amateur superheroes must try to save the day when a supervillain threatens to destroy a major superhero and the city.

A bureaucrat in a dystopic society becomes an enemy of the state as he pursues the woman of his dreams.

A tough crisis comedy on a swing weekend where four different age couples face each other mentally and physically. Everyone has a crisis, either on the surface or hidden, and hence their own reasons to try to save their relationship.

Wacky hijinks of counselors and campers at a less-than-average summer camp.

A kids show host, Rainbow Randolph, is fired in disgrace while his replacement, Sheldon Mopes, aka Smoochy the Rhino, finds himself a rising star. Unfortunately for Sheldon, the business of kids television isn't all child's play.

Irwin M. "Fletch" Fletcher is a newspaper reporter being offered a large sum to off a cancerous millionaire, but is on the run, risking his job and finding clues when it's clear the man is healthy.

Two friends who are dissatisfied with their jobs decide to join the army for a bit of fun.

In the post-apocalyptic world of 1990s Nevada, a rock 'n' roll samurai on his way to Lost Vegas takes a young orphan boy under his protection as Death and his metalhead Horsemen chase after them.

Private Joe Bauers, a decisively average American, is selected as a guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program but is forgotten, awakening to a future so incredibly moronic he's easily the most intelligent person alive.

A snobbish investor and a wily street con artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.

American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist

English musician, composer, record producer and visual artist

An idiosyncratic FBI agent investigates the murder of a young woman in the even more idiosyncratic town of Twin Peaks.

American drama television series from 1990–1991

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

A suspended lawyer is forced to enroll in a community college with an eccentric staff and student body.

American comedy television series created by Dan Harmon

New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano deals with personal and professional issues in his home and business life that affect his mental state, leading him to seek professional psychiatric counseling.

A sketch comedy show involving five friends.

Three petty felons have a documentary made about their life in a trailer park.

Q, Sal, Joe and Murr are real-life best friends who love challenging each other to the most outrageous dares and stunts ever caught on hidden camera.

Bertram Wooster, a well-intentioned, wealthy layabout, has a habit of getting himself into trouble and it's up to his brilliant valet, Jeeves, to get him out.

British comedy-drama TV series based on Jeeves stories by P.G. Wodehouse

Bret and Jemaine are Flight of the Conchords, a folk-rock band from New Zealand living in New York City in search of stardom.

An aspiring supervillain must balance his career and his pursuit of a beautiful do-gooder.

A comedic behind the scenes look at a late night talk show.

Louis Sebastian Theroux is a British-American documentarian, journalist, broadcaster, and author. He has received three British Academy Television Awards and a Royal Television Society Television Award.

Amazing series primarily using Errol Morris' invention the Interrotron for unusual people to tell their outré stories directly into the camera to the viewer. Almost every half-hour documentary episode focused on 1 person, especially 

The misadventures of a TV writer both at work and at home.

Ordinary people find themselves in extraordinarily astounding situations, which they each try to solve in a remarkable manner.

Marc Maron has been a comedian for 25 years. He's had his problems. He was an angry, drunk, self involved, twice divorced compulsive mess for most of his adult life, but with the popularity of a podcast he does in his garage and a li

Controversal spoof of current affairs television, and the role of celebrity in the UK.

An Atlantic City politician plays both sides of the law by conspiring with gangsters during the Prohibition era.

American TV series set in Atlantic City during the Prohibition era

Two F.B.I. Agents, Fox Mulder the believer and Dana Scully the skeptic, investigate the strange and unexplained, while hidden forces work to impede their efforts.

American science fiction drama television series

A comedy sketch show featuring David Mitchell and Robert Webb.

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