Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Auriel W

Blake Molmen

Dani Shahar

Luis Javier Campos nieto

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 successful life on her own terms.Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Rex and Rose Mary Walls had four children. In the beginning, they lived like nomads, moving among Southwest desert towns, camping in the mountains. Rex was a charismatic, brilliant man who, when sober, captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and above all, how to embrace life fearlessly. Rose Mary, who painted and wrote and couldn't stand the responsibility of providing for her family, called herself an "excitement addict." Cooking a meal that would be consumed in fifteen minutes had no appeal when she could make a painting that might last forever. Later, when the money ran out, or the romance of the wandering life faded, the Walls retreated to the dismal West Virginia mining town -- and the family -- Rex Walls had done everything he could to escape. He drank. He stole the grocery money and disappeared for days. As the dysfunction of the family escalated, Jeannette and her brother and sisters had to fend for themselves, supporting one another as they weathered their parents' betrayals and, finally, found the resources and will to leave home. What is so astonishing about Jeannette Walls is not just that she had the guts and tenacity and intelligence to get out, but that she describes her parents with such deep affection and generosity. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms. For two decades, Jeannette Walls hid her roots. Now she tells her own story.

A celebrated writer's irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure, spiritual devotion, and what she really wanted out of life. Around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned thirty, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. She had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want—a husband, a house, a successful career. But instead of feeling happy and fulfilled, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. She went through a divorce, a crushing depression, another failed love, and the eradication of everything she ever thought she was supposed to be. To recover from all this, Gilbert took a radical step. In order to give herself the time and space to find out who she really was and what she really wanted, she got rid of her belongings, quit her job, and undertook a yearlong journey around the world—all alone. Eat, Pray, Love is the absorbing chronicle of that year. Her aim was to visit three places where she could examine one aspect of her own nature set against the backdrop of a culture that has traditionally done that one thing very well. In Rome, she studied the art of pleasure, learning to speak Italian and gaining the twenty-three happiest pounds of her life. India was for the art of devotion, and with the help of a native guru and a surprisingly wise cowboy from Texas, she embarked on four uninterrupted months of spiritual exploration. In Bali, she studied the art of balance between worldly enjoyment and divine transcendence. She became the pupil of an elderly medicine man and also fell in love the best way—unexpectedly. An intensely articulate and moving memoir of self-discovery, Eat, Pray, Love is about what can happen when you claim responsibility for your own contentment and stop trying to live in imitation of society’s ideals. It is certain to touch anyone who has ever woken up to the unrelenting need for change.

In Gustave Doré, one of the most prolific and successful book illustrators of the late 19h century, Edgar Allan Poe's renowned poem The Raven found perhaps its most perfect artistic interpreter. Doré's dreamlike, otherworldly style, tinged with melancholy, seems ideally matched to the bleak despair of Poe's celebrated work, among the most popular American poems ever written.This volume reprints all 26 of Doré's detailed, masterly engravings from a rare 19th-century edition of the poem. Relevant lines from the poem are printed on facing pages and the complete text is also included. Admirers of Doré will find ample evidence here of his characteristic ability to capture the mood and meaning of a work of literature in striking imagery; lovers of The Raven will delight in seeing its mournful musing on love and loss given dramatic pictorial form.

Nicky has freckles: they cover his face, his ears, and the whole back of his neck. Sitting behind him in class, Andrew once counted eighty-six of them, and that was just a start! If Andrew had freckles like Nicky, his mother would never know if his neck was dirty.One day after school, Andrew works up enough courage to ask Nicky where he got his freckles. When know-it-all Sharon overhears, she offers Andrew her secret freckle juice recipe for fifty cents. It's a lot of money, but Andrew is desperate. At home he carefully mixes the strange combination of ingredients. Then the unexpected happens...

"I don't think Grandma's a very good influence on us," Mary Alice said. Every August, Joey Dowdel and his kid sister Mary Alice spend a week at their Granny's house. She was so big and the town was so small. She was old too, or so we thought -- old as the hills. And tough! She was tough as an old boot, or so we thought. As the years went by though, Mary Alice and I grew up, and though Grandma never changed, we'd seem to see a different woman every summer. Over the years, Grandma Dowdel gets the kids involved in all sorts of hilarious adventures - catching criminals, helping some star-crossed lovers elope, and showing up the snooty banker's wife. Grandma is not above stretching the truth or stealing borrowing someone's boat to achieve her goals. The sheriff even calls her a "one-woman crime wave." She may indeed seem to be as tough as a boot - after the first summer, Grandma doesn't even meet the kids at the train station; she figures that they can find their own way to her house, but Joey, Mary Alice, and the reader soon come to realize that she's something of an old softy inside. And she's also one of the most delightful literary characters I've ever encountered.This book has already made the jump onto my favorites list; it's one of those feel-good stories I look forward to reading again and again.

For over sixty years, Madeline's adventures have enthralled her ever-growing audience. This collection brings together all six of the Madeline books in one volume. Every well-loved word and picture is here, plus an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anna Quindlen, an essay by Ludwig Bemelmans on how he created Madeline, and working sketches of Madeline, as well as photos of the Bemelmans family. This landmark volume will be treasured by the entire family.

For generations, readers have enjoyed classic literature. They have delighted in the romance of Jane Austen, thrilled at the adventures of Jules Verne, and pondered the lessons of Aesop. Introduce young readers to these familiar volumes with Great Illustrated Classics. In this series, literary masterworks have been adapted for young scholars. Large, easy-to-read type and charming pen-and-ink drawings enhance the text. Students are sure to enjoy becoming acquainted with traditional literature through these well-loved classics.

Winner of the 2007 BookBrowse Award for Most Popular Book.An atmospheric, gritty, and compelling novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932, by the bestselling author of Riding Lessons. When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her. Beautifully written, Water for Elephants is illuminated by a wonderful sense of time and place. It tells a story of a love between two people that overcomes incredible odds in a world in which even love is a luxury that few can afford.

Black Beauty spends his youth in a loving home, surrounded by friends and cared for by his owners. But when circumstances change, he learns that not all humans are so kind. Passed from hand to hand, Black Beauty witnesses love and cruelty, wealth and poverty, friendship and hardship . . . Will the handsome horse ever find a happy and lasting home? Carefully retold in clear contemporary language, and presented with delightful illustrations, these favorite classic stories capture the heart and imagination of young readers. By retelling the story in a shorter, simpler form, these books become highly engaging for children, and the color illustrations help with both comprehension and interest level. Black Beauty is part of a collectible series that has strong gift appeal.

When you write a review of a kid's book, there really should be a way to give it two different star ratings. One for you, and one for the kids you've read it to. For me, this book might be a three star book. Four if I was feeling generous. I find it wordy and ponderous. Overwrought. The plot is pretty clunky and meh. I don't hate the book or anything, it's just doesn't do much for me. But my boy loves it. He wants me to read it to him over and over again. And again. I think this might be slightly because my boy loves the movie The Iron Giant a lot. But that can't be too much of the reason, as the book has only a glancing similarity to the movie.(The movie is A+ excellent, by the way. One of my favorite movies ever.)

This is the beloved story of Peter, Wendy, Michael, John, Capt. Hook, Smee, the lost boys, pirates and the indians, and, of course, Tinker Bell, in their adventures in Never Land. However, for the first time, the play is here restored to Barrie's original intentions. In the words of John Caird: "A brief explanation of some of the decisions we took in revising the text may be useful to anyone considering their own production of this version We were fascinated to discover that there was no one single document called PETER PAN. What we found was a tantalizing number of different versions, all of them containing some very agreeable surprises We have made some significant alterations, the greatest of which is the introduction of a new character, the Storyteller, who is in fact the author himself. To a reader of the play, one of its most enjoyable ingredients is Barrie's unmistakable authorial tone. He tells the story of Peter Pan partly through dialogue and partly by means of his inimitable stage directions. In a whimsical, ambiguous and ironical manner he speaks here as clearly to adults as he does to children. Moreover, many of the play's complicated conceits are only comprehensible if Barrie's commentary can be heard in parallel with the voices of the characters. This device also allows us to prepare our audience with some essential background history of the Darling family in a brief prologue, and to extend the narrative at the end of the play to include Barrie's heartbreaking and heartwarming conclusion to Peter and Wendy's story."

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

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.

I’ve been reading this book for almost three years and it feels so good to finally have finished it! I was surprised by what I found in here. Poe was slightly different to what I thought. He is very much shrouded in shadow and the macabre, at least, his more successful stories and poems were. But there were also some very basic stories in here, some that felt like they weren’t even written by the same person. For every great piece of literature, there were two mediocre ones. I disliked the crime stories in particular. The best ones, for me, were the ones where the narrator laments a lost love on the cusp of insanity: these stories were simply beautiful. Here’s my top two, the only two I consider to be literary perfection: \
  The Raven\
Shall we descend into madness? Shall we be haunted by our own desires? Shall we be consumed by that terrible facet of life known only as death? Shall we cling to what cannot be reanimated? Shall we wish for a return of something that has long been in darkness? Shall we become obliterated by the brutal finality of such a statement as “nevermore?” Lenore has gone. She has departed from this life, and is permanently out of the reach of the man. The raven represents the solidarity of this. Despite how much he longs for the impossible, despite how much he hopes for something that could never occur, he still has that inclination that the fantastical could happen: he has to believe that she could come back. And the raven represents the voice of reason, the voice of actuality. And it kills him. It is pain, despair, melancholy and a spiritual death all rolled into one haunting feathery package. He rebels against this voice of rationality. He knows the voice speaks the truth, but he cannot simply accept it. He has lost something vital; he has lost part of himself that will never grace his presence again. And he clings to hope, a false hope such as it is. The raven smashes this to oblivion; it destroys any last semblance of the miraculous occurring. It makes the man realise that this is life, not some whimsical world where nothing bad ever happens. People die. People we love die. Nothing can change that. Lenore will never walk through his chamber door again, and the reality drives him into madness. It shatters his life. ”And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor  Shall be lifted- nevermore!”  His soul will never lift anymore; hope shall never be lifted anymore. By the end of the poem he has full realised the reality of the situation. The raven, the dark bird of harsh truth, the harbinger of the words he simply doesn’t want to hear, has become demonised. It has become the very object he did not want to face; he created a sense of longing to protect himself from the emotional loss of Lenore, and this bubble of falsehood has been burst. Reality sets in, and it is a fate worse than death. It is one of persecution and mental chaos as the bird is simply unable to supply the man with all his answers. He is driven mad by the unknown. The man in the poem has lost “Lenore.” But, what is this Lenore? Is she a woman? Is she this man’s lost love? Or is she something much, much, more? I think on the surface level of the poem she is his dead wife. But the archaic references speak of something else. Lenore could perhaps be a universal suggestion of a lost sense of self or even humanity. We are no longer what we once were. It is also rather significant that the man is persecuted only by the natural world. Very much in the Romanticism vein, man stands aside from nature. He has become something different with his modernisation and industrialisation. He walks outside his nature. And Poe, being an anti-transcendentalism thinker (a dark romantic), demonstrates that life isn’t all sunshine and roses, and nor could it ever be. It is pessimism in full force, and although I strongly disagree with the outlook on life, and appreciate the idealistic utopia offered in the poetry of Percy Shelley and other Romantics much more, I do love the dark beauty of this poem. The finality of the phrase “nevermore” is nothing short of maddening reality for our lost man. It is the end of hope.  Ligeia If a mind has found the most true and profound bliss what happens when it’s taken away? Well, the simple answer is it doesn’t work anymore, at least not very well. The narrator of this marvellous short story experiences a whole host of emotions and mental states after his loss. Firstly, he is hit with the expected wave of melancholy fuelled by his understandable grief; secondly, he feels the slow calm breeze of acceptance; thirdly, and finaly, he is savaged by an unrealised state of delusion and fantasy. In this, Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates his true mastery of writing a character in different states of mental stability. Needless to say, he’s a remarkable writer. In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream - and airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not of that regular mould which we have been falsely taught to worship in the classical labors of the heathen.”The narrator cannot be blamed for his fragility. He has lost his world: he has lost his beloved Ligeia. She was everything to him, and they both knew it. Nothing could lessen the blow of her death; nothing could take the pain away of her upcoming demise: nothing could save his mind in a world without her. They were living in harmony; their souls had achieved happiness and love; they were two lesser beings of one greater soul: they were at peace in their own transcendental plane, until she died. So, the narrator’s sense of self awareness and actuality has been destroyed. He is left with the tatters of a wonderful experience, and his own delusion. I recommend looking at the following quote and considering exactly who is speaking, and why he would conjure up such an image. Perhaps, he didn’t fantasise this. Maybe this is paranormal. I do love the multiplicity of its interpretation.  This short story is a marvel. It appears confusing and contradictory, but if you stop and consider who is actually speaking then its true nature is revealed. Admittedly, on my first read I was a little lost, though after a second read I began to see it for what it was. This is not as approachable as some of Poe’s other works, and it really isn’t an advisable starting point for the author. But, the short story is wonderful, truly wonderful. It highlights the working of the mind in a state of sheer depravity; it is disturbing and brilliant. PostscriptIt seems to me that the more popular stories were the more effective ones. The only one with little renown that was brilliant was Ligeia. I’m glad I read the entire thing, but some of the works were entirely forgettable. There two, though, will be works I certainly will be reading again in the future.

Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.With a foreward by Markus Zusak &amp; interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney 

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.

An acclaimed bestseller and international sensation, Patrick Suskind's classic novel provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man's indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder.In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille's genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the "ultimate perfume"—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.

This semester I am requiring my students to read The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, a novel takes place in Poland during World War II. The good news is that my students love the book; in fact, several of them are reading ahead.	The shocking fact, the bad news, is what they don’t know. It is not just knowledge of history that they lack; it is knowledge of basic geography.	God bless PowerPoint and blackboard.	To be fair, my students do ask intelligent questions, yet the lack of basic knowledge is shocking. At times, I feel like I am teaching a culture and history course in addition to a reading skills course.	Now, I don’t think it is the students’ fault. I think the fault lies with the schools as well as parents and special interest groups. Here’s why.	There is a group called PABBIS (Parents against Bad Books in Schools). I disagree with them on so many different levels, but their website does have two good features. It actually quotes the material they find objectionable, and it has a complete list of banned and challenged books (as recent as 4-5 years ago).	The Devil’s Arithmetic is on that list by the way.	Everything by Stephen King makes the list. Everything by Dahl, Blume, Block. There are a few Black Stallion books on the list as is Black Beauty, Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, Three to Tango, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Lorax, and Shakespeare.	In other words, pretty much anything good.	Lately, history and science text books have been subjected to strange changes (i.e. as in Texas) and warning labels (usually about evolution).	In terms banning and challenging books, I might under the idea if the book was being assigned at an inappropriate grade level, say Beloved to first graders. Why an exceptional first grader might not have a problem with such a book, there are several things wrong, in general, about such assignment, least of which is the subject matter. Yet, I have never heard of such an assignment. Age appropriateness isn’t really the issue. It seems to rest on what might offend any group, anywhere.	Take, for instance, The Diary of Anne Frank. This book has been banned, challenged, and rejected by parents and text book committees because of the sex and tragedy of the story.	Raisin in the Sun has been banned and challenged because it’s pornographic. (Can someone please, please show me where?).	I can certainly see why The Devil’s Arithmetic is banned. It is the mention of a wedding.	Blatantly heterosexual.	Okay, it’s most likely due to the violence (it’s about the Holocaust) and the ending. Romeo and Juliet was dissed by a teacher who said it was a blatant endorsement of heterosexual love (so I guess teen suicide is okay).	BUT, Yolen’s magnificent book is exactly the type of book that should be used in schools.	Let’s face it, the wrong text book and/or the wrong teacher can make history very boring, and sometimes people just don’t like learning about history for a variety of reasons. This is the reason why good historical fiction should be used in schools. A good historical novel can get a reader interested in a period, in an event, in a person. This true, to a degree, of such less accurate work than The Devil’s Arithmetic. 300 caused some people to become interested in the Spartans, Titanic in the actual ship. In terms of books, vampire novels and historical fiction, such as The Other Boleyn Girl also cause readers to become interested in the actual events or myths that the novel is based on. Curiosity and a desire to learn are fueled by a variety of things; interest is one of them.	The Devil’s Arithmetic is precisely the type of book that for young readers can help history seem more real and, perhaps, get a reader interested in history. Yolen does not talk down to her readers, her main character is sympathetic, an older sibling, and because Yolen doesn’t pull her punches, it is a real history, not a feel good history. This makes the story far more compelling and interesting. The story is told actively and quickly. Words are not wasted. The reader learns but is not lectured to and screamed at.	Because of this reality and vividness, parents object to the story, and this raises the question of whether teachers and parents should sugarcoat history. It’s true that are plenty of novels and movies that present history in a more flattering light (look at the perfect teeth, the clean bodies, the small pox vaccination scars). A reader can quite easily find it in any average romance novel. Such writing does serve a sense of purpose, escapism, and there is nothing wrong with that.	But that is not education.	Is this what parents want a school to be?	I hope not. I suppose it is easy for me to comment on appropriateness and the evil of banning because I don’t have a child, and I was raised in a house where you were encouraged to read what you wanted. I see, however, the effects of banning and challenging which are a total lack of knowledge or, worse, a lack of interest about a subject because the subject has been taught in such a sterile environment, so devoid of any color or shading, where everything is the color and taste of sugar; where everyone in the world has always treated everyone with respect and love, where women always had the right to vote, and slavery only existed in North and South America, and was totally destroyed by the American Civil War.	Good literature, of which The Devil’s Arithmetic is a prime example forces its readers to examine their own knowledge and lack of knowledge, forces readers to think about their own responses, notions, and stereotypes. Good literature teaches or enlightens the reader even if the reader already knows. It is a bond between writer, book, and reader that is no less real than those ties of family and society that provide the excuse for book banning.

Swan SongLike the rest of his family, Louis is a trumpeter swan. But unlike his four brothers and sisters, Louis can't trumpet joyfully. In fact, he can't even make a sound. And since he can't trumpet his love, the beautiful swan Serena pays absolutely no attention to him.Louis tries everything he can think of to win Serena's affection—he even goes to school to learn to read and write. But nothing seems to work. Then his father steals him a real brass trumpet. Is a musical instrument the key to winning Louis his love?

Aesop's Fables or Aesopica refers to a collection of fables credited to Aesop (620-560 BC), a slave and story-teller who lived in Ancient Greece. Aesop's Fables have become a blanket term for collections of brief fables, usually involving anthropomorphic animals. Many stories included in Aesop's Fables, such as The Fox and the Grapes (from which the idiom "sour grapes" was derived), The Tortoise and the Hare, The North Wind and the Sun and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, are well-known throughout the world.

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RuneScape 3 is a free-to-play adventure game....

Famous actress Lara Tyler can't get married to author James Arber without intrusive paparazzi crashing the ceremony. Because of James's best-seller, Lara's agent, Steve, checks out the little known Hegg Island in Scotland as the site for their next attempted wedding. Unfortunately, James is a hack, and his book (supposedly based on Hegg) relays little of it accurately. Katie, an island native and the only unmarried woman on it, has been unlucky in love. She's working on writing her own guide to Hegg Island when Steve and crew arrive, eventually hiring her as a reluctant decoy bride to distract the paparazzi. In a mix-up, she and James end up married to each other while Lara, having spotted the press, goes into hiding. Katie and James now have to get an island divorce while avoiding the press while other parties seek out Lara (who has disguised herself as one of the elderly islanders).

Mrs. Palfrey (Dame Joan Plowright), recently widowed after a long happy marriage, moves into a London residential hotel more lively and elegant on-line than in fact. She determines to make the best of it amongst an odd assortment of people, and she particularly hopes her grandson, a London resident, will visit. When she slips on a walk and is aided by penniless young writer Ludo (Rupert Friend), she invites him to dine at the Claremont and plays along when her dining mates assume he's her grandson. A friendship develops giving her a companion with whom she can talk about memories and poetry and giving him ideas and support for his writing. But what of her actual family? How it plays out is the movie's story.

Brutus, Cassius, and other high-ranking Romans murder Caesar, because they believe his ambition will lead to tyranny. The people of Rome are on their side until Antony, Caesar's right-hand man, makes a moving speech. The conspirators are driven from Rome, and two armies are formed: one side following the conspirators; the other, Antony. Antony has the superior force, and surrounds Brutus and Cassius, but they kill themselves to avoid capture.

Willowdean ('Dumplin'), the plus-size teenage daughter of a former beauty queen, signs up for her mom's Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant as a protest that escalates when other contestants follow her footsteps, revolutionizing the pageant and their small Texas town.

The story is based on Jane Austen's novel about five sisters - Jane (Rosamund Pike), Elizabeth (Keira Knightley), Mary (Talulah Riley), Kitty (Carey Mulligan), and Lydia Bennet (Jena Malone) - in Georgian England. Their lives are turned upside down when wealthy young Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods) and his best friend, Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), arrive in their neighborhood.

Leo and Paige are a couple who just got married. After an accident, Paige is left unconscious, and when she awakes she doesn't remember Leo. Her parents, whom she hasn't seen since she and Leo got together, come and visit her. She can't believe that she hasn't seen them for such a long time. Leo wants to bring her home with him but her parents want her to go with them. She goes with Leo but when she doesn't recognize anything, she goes to her parents. And she wonders why did she cut off contact with her family. She also runs into her ex and wonders why they broke up. Leo tries to win her back by courting her again.

Teenagers Rose and Bennett were in love, and then a car crash claimed Bennett's life. He left behind a grieving mother, father, and younger brother, and Rose was left all alone. She has no family to turn to for support, so when she finds out she's pregnant, she winds up at the Brewers' door. She needs their help, and although they can't quite admit it, they each need her so they can begin to heal.

A recently paroled ex-con who has trouble adjusting to the wacky normalcy of life outside of prison. He has spent the last three years behind bars after getting caught committing a crime and taking the rap for his much more dangerous pal.

A rare glimpse into the relationship between beloved children's author A. A. Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) and his son Christopher Robin, whose toys inspired the magical world of Winnie the Pooh. Along with his mother Daphne (Margot Robbie), and his nanny Olive, Christopher Robin and his family are swept up in the international success of the books; the enchanting tales bringing hope and comfort to England after the First World War. But with the eyes of the world on Christopher Robin, what will the cost be to the family?

The true feel-good story of how James Bowen, a busker and recovering drug addict, has his life transformed when he meets a stray ginger cat. Based on the international best selling book.

Two sophisticated jewel thieves join forces to steal $30 million in uncut jewels. Despite a continuous exchange of quips they eventually become romantically involved.

A young man meets a girl on a train, only to spend the rest of the movie trying to reunite with her (one of the love-at-first-sight things), aided by his best friend in a quest of posters and signs that soon gains public notice. Will he ever find his soul mate?

Sam (Hugh Laurie) and Lucy Bell (Joely Richardson) are a married couple who seem to have it all: good looks, successful careers and an enthusiastic love life. The only thing they lack is the one thing they want most - a baby. They try everything in their efforts to reproduce: New Age chanting, acupuncture, creative lovemaking, but all this hectic schedule achieves is improvement in their cardiovascular systems. Ovulation charts soon replace spontaneity, when the couple reluctantly deliver themselves into the hands of medical professionals. At the same time, as Sam comes to find his job increasingly unfulfilling, he sets his sights on writing a screenplay, but writer's block strikes. Encouraged to "look within" by his hippie friend Druscilla (Dame Emma Thompson), Sam is inspired. He will write a comedy about a couple trying for a baby, but Lucy is horrified at the idea, and forbids him to tell their story. Sam and Lucy's love for each other, the most important thing they both have, will now truly be put to the test with surprising results.

The marriage of Danny and Hannah spectacularly crashes during the reception when the bride's best friend tells the groom that the bride is having an affair with her husband! The shock wave of chaos that spreads out from this one event touches the lives of a diverse group of the thirtysomethings that inhabit the Camden Town area of London. Hannah immediately leaves the reception and gets drunk and ends up in bed with the unwashed artist Cameron who shares a flat with a nerdy comic book enthusiast Liam, who in turn starts an ill-advised affair with society dropout single-mother Sophie. Danny meanwhile moves on and embarks on a relationship with a struggling singer Mary, whom he met at the airport on his way to his lonesome honeymoon. This partner-swapping merry-go-round continues for two years until a semblance of normality asserts itself and Danny and Hannah decide to drop everything and embark on their long delayed honeymoon.

Doug (David Tennant) and Abi (Rosamund Pike) take their kids on a family vacation. Surrounded by relatives, the kids innocently reveal the ins and outs of their family life and many intimate details about their parents. It's soon clear that when it comes to keeping a big secret under wraps from the rest of the family, their children are their biggest liability. Find out how the rest of the family cope and see if the holiday will ever end.

2014 comedy film directed by Andy Hamilton

Matt King's family has lived in Hawaii for generations. His extended family - namely he and his many cousins - own 25,000 acres of undeveloped land on Kauai held in trust, which ends in seven years. The easiest thing for the family to do is sell the land before the seven years is up, which is all the talk in the state, as, to whom they sell the property could very well change the face of Kauai. Despite the vast wealth that comes with the land, Matt has decided to live solely on what he earns as a Honolulu lawyer. However, Matt has not had a perfect life living in Hawaiian paradise as many believe. He and his wife Elizabeth were having problems in their marriage. She recently got into a boating accident which has placed her in a coma. Their seventeen year old daughter Alex is in boarding school on the big island since they couldn't handle her rebellion, which was made all the worse by an argument of an unknown nature between mother and daughter during Alex's last visit home. And their ten year old daughter Scottie is starting to act out, which Matt doesn't know if he can handle, potentially raising her on his own. Matt decides to bring Alex home upon news that Elizabeth is brain dead, and that she will be pulled off life support. But revelations about Elizabeth and Alex's argument, which is tied indirectly to the issue of the land sale, leads to some decisions on Matt's part about what is best for him in both mourning Elizabeth's death and what is the best thing to do about the land, the two decisions which may be incompatible.

Monty Wildhorn, an alcoholic novelist of Westerns, has lost his drive. His nephew pushes him to summer in quiet Belle Isle. He begrudgingly befriends a newly single mom and her 3 girls who help him find the inspiration to write again.

POMS is a comedy about a group of women who form a cheer leading squad at their retirement community, proving that you're never too old to 'bring it!'

The night of their high school reunion, a group of friends realize they still haven't quite grown up in some ways.

Enchanted by the idea of locating treasure buried by Captain Flint, Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey and Jim Hawkins charter a sailing voyage to a Caribbean island. Unfortunately, a large number of Flint's old pirate crew are aboard the ship, including Long John Silver.

1950 Disney adventure film directed by Byron Haskin

American singer, songwriter and actress (born 1966)

American recording artist; pop rock singer-songwriter and pianist

American singer, actress, and television personality (born 1992)

American film composer and conductor (1953-2015)

Adam Burns (Matt Leblanc) thinks that taking care of childrens is piece of cake and tells his wife Andi (Liza Snyder) that she can get back to her job and he'll manage the children but what will happen when he looks after his children is a fun rollercoaster ride to watch.

A British sketch comedy that explores the integration of Indian and British cultures through a series of satires,musicals and skits.

When the body of a young man is discovered in a derelict building, Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Cassie Stuart is called in to investigate with her partner, Detective Sergeant (DS) Sunil "Sunny" Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar). Jimmy Sullivan was a homeless runaway away boy, murdered in 1976 when the building was a hostel. His diary implicates four suspects; a clergyman, an eminent entrepreneur, a community worker, and a disabled house-bound husband caring for his wife. Each has a secret to hide. As their lies unravel, the people they love most begin to wonder what else they might be capable of. Nothing in this case is black and white. Can you ever really know the people closest to you? What secrets have they buried?.

Series 1 follows the early police career of young Endeavour Morse, who upon leaving his Oxford College without a degree, spending time in the Royal Signal Corps., and eventually joining the Oxfordshire Police, is transferred to CID, attaining the rank of Detective Constable. Originally starting out his career at Carshall-Newtown Police, Morse transfers to the Oxford City Police in 1965 following a murder investigation during the pilot episode. While with the Oxford City Police, Morse is taken under the wing of veteran Detective Inspector Fred Thursday. Inspector Thursday names Morse his designated "bag man" and shows him the ropes as Morse begins to solve a string of complex murders, much to the envy and annoyance of some of his superiors, particularly Detective Sergeant Jakes and Chief Superintendent Bright. Thursday and Morse's fellow officer, Police Constable Strange, try to steer the young Endeavour into taking his Sergeant's exam, so that he may be relieved of "General Duties" and become Thursday's official "bag man" with the appropriate rank and title.

Bandleader Ricky Ricardo would be happy if his wife Lucy would just be a housewife. Instead, she constantly tries to perform at his club, the Tropicana, and make life comically frantic in the apartment building they share with landlord and best friends, Fred and Ethel Mertz.

It's about the lives of three childhood best friends and all the funny stuff that happens to them and all the other people they know.

Keith is a minicab driver who, between fares, relates how his marriage broke down and his wife Marion ran off with a work colleague, Geoff. Later he is employed as a chauffeur for a movie producer (of sorts) whose wife is rich and he continues to try and see his children and be friendly with Marion.

Tom Latimer is a young GP, his father Toby is a Harley Street consultant. Tom, in the process of divorcing his wife, sees his newly found bachelor life disrupted when his father leaves his wife, Tom's mother, and moves in with him.

The daily lives of Jimmy, his two kids and his mother in law whilst his wife is in Africa.

Comedy drama about the day to day lives of husband and wife, Roger and Val. After they've just got in from work.

A failing witchfinder transports a suspected witch to a trial that could change his fortunes, but first he has to deal with the worst possible travel companion and road-free trip across the country gripped by civil war, famine and plague.

Host Richard Hammond, from the hit series Top Gear, explains the science behind videos taken from the Internet.

Late-night music and chat show with celebrity guests.

Jo Brand hosts a panel show that is essentially a fan show for The Great British Bake Off, corresponding to a particular episode of the show.

MasterChef: The Professionals is a BBC television competitive cooking show aired on BBC Two.

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