Emo Nemo

Mily

Sarah

Shaidrian Rios

Jimmy Beans

miCCwatreSSop

Julie Wynne - videos

Kapuster

Nicky Tallon

Harini Sen

Vastralaya

Evan Shively (Perseus271)

I had removed this review, which violates Article 2 of the Terms of Use:You agree not to post User Content that: (i) may create a risk of harm, loss, physical or mental injury, emotional distress, death, disability, disfigurement, or physical or mental illness to you, to any other person, or to any animal.Looking at the comment thread, it is abundantly clear that the review not only may, but indeed has caused emotional distress to several Potter fans. I would like to offer my apologies to these unfortunate people, who had every right to expect better service from Goodreads. But, despite the above, I have decided on mature consideration that I will attempt an experiment: I am reinstating the original review, hiding the dangerous and inflammatory content inside a spoiler tag. If you are a person easily offended by negative comments about Harry Potter and still decide to click it, then you have only yourself to blame. You have been warned.(view spoiler)[I got into an argument the other day with an articulate 17 year old Harry Potter fan - let's call him D - who wanted to know why I was being so nasty in my review of Deathly Hallows. What was wrong with it? I offered various structural criticisms: the ending is abrupt and unconvincing, the subplot with the Horcruxes has not been adequately foreshadowed in the earlier volumes, and the book as a whole is overlong and boring. D expressed surprise that I could call Deathly Hallows boring, when I'd given five stars to Madame Bovary and Animal Farm, both of which he considered far duller. The discussion continued for some time. In the end, I said I would write a review summarising my objections to the series as a whole. Here it is.As I said to D, it's not the books or the author. The early Potter books are cute and entertaining, and J.K. Rowling seems like a nice person - if someone's going to scoop the literary Powerball jackpot, why not her? What I very strongly object to is the way the books have been marketed. About 10 years ago, it seems to me, some clever people figured out a new marketing strategy, which they first applied to Potter; when that came to an end, the same methods were used for Twilight. Both series have enjoyed a level of success which is utterly disproportionate to their quality, and which is also unprecedented in literary history. Twilight clearly follows Potter; I've had several discussions about what preceded Potter, and the answer, everyone seems to agree, is that there was no earlier success story of this kind. Before Potter, there was no YA series of dubious merit that absolutely everyone read. I think it's uncontroversial that Potter, in terms of literary quality, is better than Twilight, but Twilight has been even more successful. At one point, the four volumes occupied the top four spots in the New York Times bestseller list. On Goodreads, nearly half of the top 50 reviews are of Twilight books. This is an absurd and unnatural state of affairs. Even though Twilight may not be quite as bad as is sometimes made out - I'm one of many people who have tried to defend it - there's no way it deserves this level of attention.So why is everyone reading it, and why, before that, was everyone reading Potter? As I said, I think it's primarily about the marketing, though I wish I was more sure about the details. Here, at any rate, are some thoughts. First, the publishers are aggressively using economies of scale and deals with third parties. They print very large numbers of copies, and they work together with movie studios, game companies and merchandisers to cross-promote them. I think it's particularly important that a large proportion of the books are sold, not at bookstores, but at normal supermarkets. It's well known that the cover price is usually marked down to the point where the supermarket is not in fact making any profit; they have discovered that they can successfully treat it as a loss leader. This is causing great pain to independent bookstores. Some of them, I have read, have adopted the desperate expedient of buying copies at supermarkets and then reselling them. Second, let's look at the content and style. Even though Potter and Twilight are fairly different in some ways, they also have many strong similarities. Above all, they are extremely easy to read, at every level. The vocabulary is unchallenging; the sentences are short and simple; most characters are one-dimensional stereotypes; the story is uncomplicatedly plot-driven; there are few references to other works of literature. You can read these books if you're tired, if you're sleepy, if you have poor reading skills, if you've never read anything else. They consequently have a very large potential audience.Third, they describe a comforting, emasculated world in which most of the things that make our own world so difficult and unpleasant have been removed. Most strikingly, there is no sex; in Harry Potter, which is supposed to be about fairly normal teens, no one masturbates, no girls get pregnant, none of them are labelled sluts because they've had sex with more than one boy (sometimes one is enough, for that matter), no one gets their heart broken and drops out of school or starts taking drugs as a result, no one is stuck in a dead-end relationship that they wish they could escape from, but can't. The worst thing that happens in either series is the sequence in New Moon where Edward temporarily leaves Bella. Meyer notoriously doesn't describe Bella's feelings at all, but just leaves several pages blank. Once, in fact not so long ago, most adults would have been embarrassed to be seen reading YA literature of this kind; to start with, the comforting word "YA" hadn't been invented yet, and they would have been reading children's books. Somehow, there's been a shift in standards. You look around you on a bus to see what people are reading, and you can be pretty sure you'll see at least a couple of people over 20 engrossed in Potter or Twilight. It's odd that this has happened, and I wish I understood why.In conclusion, I couldn't help being struck by the two books D chose to contrast against Potter. D, Madame Bovary is going to outlast both of these authors because Emma is a real person who experiences the crazy and contradictory emotions that real people experience when they are very unhappy, and as a result she behaves in a crazy and contradictory way; also, Flaubert, unlike Rowling and Meyer, took a great deal of trouble over his prose, and created some of the most beautiful and ironic passages in world literature. There aren't many books I'd call masterpieces, but this is one of them. And finally, Animal Farm is indeed an allegory of the Russian Revolution. More importantly, though, it's about how smart, unscrupulous people manipulate trusting, weak people. Tens of millions of people are reading Potter and Twilight, not because the books are well-written or interesting, but because the readers have been manipulated into buying them by the Napoleons and Squealers of this world. That's what I'm objecting to. Think about it for a moment. (hide spoiler)]

Read the Longman Simplified English version.This book is important because it's a window into the lifestyles of people living in the 18th century. I have to admit the dullness of the interactions mixed with the third person omniscient style (which lacks emotions) did not give me a good first impression of the novel. Yet, due to curiosity as to why this is a classic I decided to keep going. As far as petty drama goes I was pleasantly surprised upon reaching 3/4 of the book. (view spoiler)[When the youngest sister Lydia ran off with the sleazy Mr. Wickham the plot took an interesting turn which significantly changed my opinion. The title of the book is also very fitting. Pride = Mr. Darcy Prejudice = Elizabeth The story about two unlikely people that fall for each other while overcoming their flaws.  (hide spoiler)]

Heart of Darkness and Selected Short Fiction, by Joseph Conrad, is part of the Barnes &amp; Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes &amp; Noble Classics: * New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars * Biographies of the authors * Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events * Footnotes and endnotes * Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work * Comments by other famous authors * Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations * Bibliographies for further reading * Indices &amp; Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes &amp; Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.One of the most haunting stories ever written, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness follows Marlow, a riverboat captain, on a voyage into the African Congo at the height of European colonialism. Astounded by the brutal depravity he witnesses, Marlow becomes obsessed with meeting Kurtz, a famously idealistic and able man stationed farther along the river. What he finally discovers, however, is a horror beyond imagining. Heart of Darkness is widely regarded as a masterpiece for its vivid study of human nature and the greed and ruthlessness of imperialism. This collection also includes three of Conrad’s finest short stories: “Youth,” the author’s largely autobiographical tale of a young man’s ill-fated sea voyage, in which Marlow makes his first appearance, “The Secret Sharer,” and “Amy Forster.” Features a map of the Congo Free State.A. Michael Matin is a professor in the English Department of Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. He has published articles on various twentieth-century British and postcolonial writers.

At the staid Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburgh, Scotland, teacher extraordinaire Miss Jean Brodie is unmistakably, and outspokenly, in her prime. She is passionate in the application of her unorthodox teaching methods and strives to bring out the best in each one of her students. Determined to instill in them independence, passion, and ambition, Miss Brodie advises them, "Safety does not come first. Goodness, Truth, and Beauty come first. Follow me." And they do--but one of them will betray her.

Manhattan Beach is a historical novel by American writer Jennifer Egan. It was published in 2017 by Scribner. The National Book Foundation listed the book in their 2017 National Book Award Longlist in the Fiction category. Time magazine selected it as one of its top ten novels of 2017.Eleven-going-on-twelve Anna Kerrigan and her father Eddie meet with gangster Dexter Styles in late 1934 at the Styles mansion on the shore of Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn, New York City. Eddie is a former vaudeville performer who switched to become a stockbroker during the Roaring Twenties, then was ruined in the Great Depression. Now he makes very little money as a bagman in the criminal underworld, and he tells Styles he needs money to pay for a wheelchair for his brain-damaged and paralyzed daughter, Lydia, Anna's younger sister. Unknown to Anna, Eddie agrees to work for Styles in his gambling operations. Anna puts her bare feet into the wintry cold seawater at Manhattan Beach to prove her toughness; this childish bravado makes a lasting impression on Styles.

The astonishing novel Brave New World, originally published in 1932, presents Aldous Huxley's vision of the future--of a world utterly transformed. Through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, people are genetically designed to be passive and therefore consistently useful to the ruling class. This powerful work of speculative fiction sheds a blazing critical light on the present and is considered to be Aldous Huxley's most enduring masterpiece.The non-fiction work Brave New World Revisited, published in 1958, is a fascinating work in which Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy envisioned in Brave New World, including the threats to humanity, such as over-population, propaganda, and chemical persuasion.

She is the story of Cambridge professor Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey, and their journey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. The journey is triggered by a mysterious package left to Leo by his father, to be opened on his 25th birthday; the package contains an ancient shard of pottery and several documents, suggesting an ancient mystery about the Vincey family. Holly and Leo eventually arrive in eastern Africa where they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful "She" or "She-who-must-be-obeyed" and who has a mysterious connection to young Leo. The story expresses numerous racial and evolutionary conceptions of the late Victorians, especially notions of degeneration and racial decline prominent during the fin de siècle. In the figure of She, the novel notably explored themes of female authority and feminine behaviour. It has received praise and criticism alike for its representation of womanhood. (From Wikipedia)

Two contrary states of the human soul The moon like a flower,In Heavens high bower;With silent delight,Sits and smiles on the night.(Night)At times the weight of the reputation of an artist is that intimidating I can barely overcome trepidation to venture into approaching his or her work. William Blake is such an artist. So when this lovely little book arrived in the letter box as a birthday present, it felt like a sweet little heartening push, giving me the courage to dive into the refreshing water of the unknown, holding the promise of a thrilling encounter with the imagination of supreme mind. Unsure what to expect and what those two parts – innocence and experience – would stand for, making Blake’s acquaintance was a highly rewarding reading experience I cannot really compare to any other I had before. From innocence, which seems mostly the one of childhood, symbolised by scenes on infants, children, a shepherd, mothers in a pastoral setting, the transition to experience is evocated by a darkening mood and tone, in which consciousness rises of the adult world in which danger, menace , anxiety undeniably will encumber happiness and joy and where comfort is hard to find – for adults nor for children. The powerful imagery is replete with fauna and flora, happiness and joy take the shape of a sparrow, a lamb, a robin, a grasshopper, a rose, spring, green fields, sweet sleep. Revolving to experience, a child is hungry, sweet flowers in the Garden of Love have changed into graves and tombstones, youthfulness dissolves, the narrative voice bemoans the multitudinous forms of human woe and suffering in London (‘The mind-forg’d manacles I hear’). A rose is tainted at the core. A mighty tiger roars, reminding of the mysterium tremendum et fascinans characterizing the religious experience of transcendence. At the first read I was particularly enthralled by the compelling, sublime musicality of the rhymes and the dynamics of the verses (it is thought that Blake set several of the verses to his own tunes, no scores have survived however). These are poems one can imagine a joy to learn and know by heart. In a second read, now having read the illuminating introduction which gives insight into the patterns of ‘contrary’ or answering poems in both parts of the book and the contrasts existing within the poems themselves, pointing at the the puzzling ambiguities, the contrary energies flowing through the poems, the angle of the brilliant mirroring interconnectivity of the composition was a delightful one, and I can easily imagine a third read will unveil other aspects. The beauteous edition I read draws on the version sold by his wife Catherine Boucher to the Bishop of Limerick in 1830 which ended up into the hands of E.M. Forster, offering it to King’s College, Cambridge – on the left page a literal transcription of each poem is printed, on the right page a reproduction of the original illustrated plate (the designs are not just for embellishment of the poems but intrinsically part of Blake’s poetic imagination). Absorbing the combination of both the words and the quaint images of Blake’s ‘illuminated printing’ at the same time proved ineffectual for me at the first read, so this gem volunteered as a new nightstand companion. At the moment it might be mostly obscure to me, but perhaps the more complex and mysterious meanings of the verses will further show upon rereading and exploring Blake more in depth. Youth of delight! come hitherAnd see the opening morn,Image of Truth new-born.Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason,Dark disputes and artful teazing.Folly is an endless maze;Tangled roots perplex her ways;How many have fallen there!They stumble all night over bones of the dead;And feel—they know not what but care;And wish to lead others, when they should be led.(The Voice of the Ancient Bard)

Alternate cover for ISBN 9780345350688Through a life of passion and struggle, Malcolm X became one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century. In this riveting account, he tells of his journey from a prison cell to Mecca, describing his transition from hoodlum to Muslim minister. Here, the man who called himself "the angriest Black man in America" relates how his conversion to true Islam helped him confront his rage and recognize the brotherhood of all mankind. An established classic of modern America, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" was hailed by the New York Times as "Extraordinary. A brilliant, painful, important book." Still extraordinary, still important, this electrifying story has transformed Malcom X's life into his legacy. The strength of his words, the power of his ideas continue to resonate more than a generation after they first appeared.

"One of the most delightful and enduring classics of children's literature, The Secret Garden by Victorian author Frances Hodgson Burnett has remained a firm favorite with children the world over ever since it made its first appearance. Initially published as a serial story in 1910 in The American Magazine, it was brought out in novel form in 1911.  The plot centers round Mary Lennox, a young English girl who returns to England from India, having suffered the immense trauma by losing both her parents in a cholera epidemic. However, her memories of her parents are not pleasant, as they were a selfish, neglectful and pleasure-seeking couple. Mary is given to the care of her uncle Archibald Craven, whom she has never met. She travels to his home, Misselthwaite Manor located in the gloomy Yorkshire, a vast change from the sunny and warm climate she was used to. When she arrives, she is a rude, stubborn and given to stormy temper tantrums. However, her nature undergoes a gradual transformation when she learns of the tragedies that have befallen her strict and disciplinarian uncle whom she earlier feared and despised. Once when he's away from home, Mary discovers a charming walled garden which is always kept locked. The mystery deepens when she hears sounds of sobbing from somewhere within her uncle's vast mansion. The kindly servants ignore her queries or pretend they haven't heard, spiking Mary's curiosity.  The Secret Garden appeals to both young and old alike. It has wonderful elements of mystery, spirituality, charming characters and an authentic rendering of childhood emotions and experiences. Commonsense, truth and kindness, compassion and a belief in the essential goodness of human beings lie at the heart of this unforgettable story. It is the best known of Frances Hodgson Burnett's works, though most of us have definitely heard of, if not read, her other novel Little Lord Fauntleroy.  The book has been adapted extensively on stage, film and television and translated into all the world's major languages. In 1991, a Japanese anime version was launched for television in Japan. It remains a popular and beloved story of a child's journey into maturity, and a must-read for every child, parent, teacher and anyone who would enjoy this fascinating glimpse of childhood. One of the most delightful and enduring classics of children's literature, The Secret Garden by Victorian author Frances Hodgson Burnett has remained a firm favorite with children the world over ever since it made its first appearance. Initially published as a serial story in 1910 in The American Magazine, it was brought out in novel form in 1911." 

Smaug certainly looked fast asleep, when Bilbo peeped once more from the entrance. He was just about to step out onto the floor when he caught a sudden thin ray of red from under the drooping lid of Smaug's left eye. He was only pretending to be sleep! He was watching the tunnel entrance!Whisked from his comfortable hobbit-hole by Gandalf the wizard and a band of dwarves, Bilbo Baggins finds himself caught up in a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon.

Set in the rural Midlands of England, The Rainbow (1915) revolves around three generations of the Brangwens, a strong, vigorous family, deeply involved with the land. When Tom Brangwen marries a Polish widow,Lydia Lensky, and adopts her daughter Anna as his own, he is unprepared for the conflict and passion that erupts between them. All are seeking individual fulfilment, but it is Ursula, Anna's spirited daughter, who, in search for self-knowledge, rejects the conventional role of womanhood.

First published in 1903, The Call of the Wild is regarded as Jack London's masterpiece. Based on London's experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, The Call of the Wild is a tale about unbreakable spirit and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.

In the first novel of C.S. Lewis's classic science fiction trilogy, Dr Ransom, a Cambridge academic, is abducted and taken on a spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra, which he knows as Mars. His captors are plotting to plunder the planet's treasures and plan to offer Ransom as a sacrifice to the creatures who live there. Ransom discovers he has come from the 'silent planet' – Earth – whose tragic story is known throughout the universe...

Widely regarded as D. H. Lawrence's greatest novel, Women in Love is both a lucid account of English society before the First World War, and a brilliant evocation of the inexorable power of human desire. Women in Love continues where The Rainbow left off, with the third generation of Brangwens: Ursula Brangwen, now a teacher at Beldover, a mining town in the Midlands, and her sister Gudrun, who has returned from art school in London. The focus of the novel is primarily on their relationships, Ursula's with Rupert Birkin, a school inspector, and Gudrun's with industrialist Gerald Crich, and later with a sculptor, Loerke. Quintessentially modernist, Women in Love is one of Lawrence's most extraordinary, innovative and unsettling works.

Heart of Darkness, a novel by Joseph Conrad, was originally a three-part series in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899. It is a story within a story, following a character named Charlie Marlow, who recounts his adventure to a group of men onboard an anchored ship. The story told is of his early life as a ferry boat captain. Although his job was to transport ivory downriver, Charlie develops an interest in investing an ivory procurement agent, Kurtz, who is employed by the government. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in “one of the darkest places on earth.” Marlow suspects something else of Kurtz: he has gone mad.A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is considered one of the most influential works ever written.

Far from the Madding Crowd was Thomas Hardy's first major literary success, and it edited with an introduction and notes by Rosemarie Morgan and Shannon Russell in Penguin Classics.Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in the fictional county of Wessex, Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.

I think this is the first book I've ever hated. And that list is pretty short. As a child, it really distressed me - I didn't understand much of it, and it confused me why its tone was so very different from the other Narnia books. Then, when I reread it a few years ago, it just pissed me off. The message about religious pluralism is refreshing, sure, but the book just plain reads wrong, and I will probably never get over Lewis's treatment of Susan. I guess if you don't believe in God, you deserve to lose your entire family in a train crash. Awesome.I suppose there is some hope in that Susan did not die - maybe her family's gruesome deaths will help her find God, and then a train will kill her too, and she'll join Peter, Edmund, and Lucy in Aslan's country! Bleargh.

The secret passage to the house next door leads to a fascinating adventureNARNIA...where the woods are thick and cold, where Talking Beasts are called to life...a new world where the adventure begins.Digory and Polly meet and become friends one cold, wet summer in London. Their lives burst into adventure when Digory's Uncle Andrew, who thinks he is a magician, sends them hurtling to...somewhere else. They find their way to Narnia, newborn from the Lion's song, and encounter the evil sorceress Jadis before they finally return home.

An amnesiac World War I veteran falls in love with a music hall star, only to suffer an accident which restores his original memories but erases his post-war life.

Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, an offbeat young woman makes an unusual decision regarding the unborn child.

2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman

A delusional young man strikes up an unconventional relationship with a doll he finds on the Internet.

Two losers try to pretend that their murdered employer is really alive, leading the hitman to attempt to track him down to finish him off.

1989 American comedy film directed by Ted Kotcheff

A pair of young lovers flee their New England town, which causes a local search party to fan out to find them.

2012 romantic comedy-drama film by Wes Anderson

Rob, a record store owner and compulsive list maker, recounts his top five breakups, including the one in progress.

A Mexican-American master chef and father to three daughters has lost his taste for food, but not for life.

A middle-aged iconoclast, doggedly avoiding the tedium of employment and conventional life, faces the prospect of losing custody of his young ward.

1965 film adaptation from a 1962 play by Herb Gardner

A couple falls in love and agrees to meet in six months at the Empire State Building - but will it happen?

A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.

2017 horror film directed by Jordan Peele

Young Blade Runner K's discovery of a long-buried secret leads him to track down former Blade Runner Rick Deckard, who's been missing for thirty years.

The Guardians struggle to keep together as a team while dealing with their personal family issues, notably Star-Lord's encounter with his father the ambitious celestial being Ego.

2017 superhero film produced by Marvel Studios

Two school friends decide to start a pretend straight relationship in an effort to fit in.

A man tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.

1960 American comedy-drama film directed by Billy Wilder

A scientist and a teacher living in a dystopian future embark on a journey of survival with a special young girl named Melanie.

Gloria is an out-of-work party girl forced to leave her life in New York City and move back home. When reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, she gradually comes to the realization that she is somehow connected to

Young Fiona lives with her grandparents in a small fishing village where she takes an active role to unravel the mysterious secrets.

Gru meets his long-lost, charming, cheerful, and more successful twin brother Dru, who wants to team up with him for one last criminal heist.

2017 American 3D computer-animated comedy film directed by Pierre Coffin

A love story set in 1930s England that follows 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain, and the fortunes of her eccentric family, struggling to survive in a decaying English castle.

A mistaken delivery in Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox delivery system connects a young housewife to an older man in the dusk of his life as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox.

American recording artist; singer-songwriter

American jazz singer, songwriter, and guitarist

American jazz pianist and composer (1917-1982)

American guitarist, singer and songwriter

Ferron (born Deborah Foisy on 1 June 1952) is a Canadian-born singer-songwriter and poet. In addition to gaining fame as one of Canada's most respected songwriters, Ferron, who is openly lesbian, became one of the earliest and most influential lyrical songwriters of the women's music circuit, and an important influence on later musicians such as Ani DiFranco, Mary Gauthier and the Indigo Girls. From the mid-eighties on, Ferron's songwriting talents have been recognized and appreciated by music critics and broader audiences, with comparisons being made to the writing talents of Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Leonard Cohen.Born in Toronto and raised around Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, she learned to play guitar at age 11, and left home at 15. Ferron attended Total Ed, an alternative high school in Vancouver, B.C., graduating in 1973. Of her earliest musical memories, she wrote, "my mother's French Canadian family played music. I heard guitars and banjo and accordion and scrub board and my grandfather clogging. I put it together...music meant fun, meant love and laughter. I started writing songs when I was 10, never saved them after some kids at school found them and teased me about it. I wrote songs and remembered them and when I forgot them I felt they were not important anymore. The next time I saved a song I was 18. It was 1970." It was with that first saved song that she made her professional debut in 1975, playing the song "Who Loses" at a benefit for the Women's Press Gang, a Vancouver-based feminist publishing house.

American recording artist; singer-songwriter and entrepreneur

A large family is raised by an unconventional single mother on a council estate in Wolverhampton, England.

British television sitcom written by Caitlin and Caroline Moran

Men and women live in a giant silo underground with a lot of regulations which they think are supposed to protect them from the toxic and ruined world on the surface.

Follows a group of police officers on the front line wondering what they did to end up where they are now, on the ugly side of Manchester.

A television show centered on a soul-searching Swedish cop.

Foyle's War is a British detective drama television series set during (and shortly after) the Second World War, created by Midsomer Murders screenwriter and author Anthony Horowitz and commissioned by ITV after the long-running series Inspector Morse ended in 2000. It began broadcasting on ITV in October 2002. ITV director of programmes Simon Shaps cancelled Foyle's War in 2007, but complaints and public demand prompted Peter Fincham (Shaps' replacement) to revive the programme after good ratings for 2008's fifth series. The final episode was broadcast on 18 January 2015, after eight series.Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen), a widower, is quiet, methodical, sagacious, scrupulously honest and frequently underestimated by his foes. Many of his cases concern profiteering, the black market and murder, and he is often called on to catch criminals who are taking advantage of the confusion created by the war. Although Foyle often comes up against high-ranking officials in the British military or intelligence services who would prefer that he mind his own business, he seeks justice tenaciously. Throughout the series, he is assisted by his driver, Samantha "Sam" Stewart (Honeysuckle Weeks), and Detective Sergeant Paul Milner (Anthony Howell).

Re-united after 50+ years apart, Celia and Alan decide to marry. At age 16, Alan's late wife failed to pass on a letter from Celia, his longtime crush, with an apology for missing their first date and her forwarding address. Both now

After a severely injured test pilot is rebuilt with nuclear-powered bionic limbs and implants, he serves as an intelligence agent.

After resigning, a secret agent is abducted and taken to what looks like an idyllic village, but is really a bizarre prison. His warders demand information. He gives them nothing, but only tries to escape.

As WWII rages, DCS Foyle fights his own war on the home-front; investigating crime on the south coast of England. Later series, see the retired detective working as an MI5 agent in the aftermath of the war.

The trials and tribulations of Dr. Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes), a socially challenged doctor who moves from London to the picturesque village of Port Wenn in Cornwall.

John River is a brilliant police inspector whose genius lies side-by-side with the fragility of his mind. He is a man haunted by the murder victims whose cases he must lay to rest.

A young woman abandons a choice job at a law firm and her life in New York in an attempt to find happiness in the unlikely locale of West Covina, California.

A woman is rescued from a doomsday cult and starts life over again in New York City.

A nouveau riche hillbilly family moves to Beverly Hills and shakes up the privileged society with their hayseed ways.

The misadventures of two single women in the 1950s and '60s.

Seven men and women are stranded on an uncharted island following a torrential storm.

The Cunningham family live through the 1950s with help and guidance from the lovable and almost superhuman greaser, Fonzie.

1974-1984 television comedy set in the 1950s

The misadventures of a suburban boy, family and friends.

American sitcom television series from the 1950s and 60s

A newly graduated doctor is required to set up his practice in an eccentric Alaskan town.

A New York City attorney and his wife attempt to live as genteel farmers in the bizarre community of Hooterville.

getting old, gratefully. The profile photo is a painting by Deborah Leigh of Victoria BC

music

movies

shows

books

people

Active tastebuds