Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Auriel W

Blake Molmen

Dani Shahar

Luis Javier Campos nieto

Second only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) presents Eliot Rosewater, an itinerant, semi-crazed millionaire wandering the country in search of heritage and philanthropic outcome, introducing the science fiction writer Kilgore Trout to the world and Vonnegut to the collegiate audience which would soon make him a cult writer.Trout, modeled according to Vonnegut on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (with whom Vonnegut had an occasional relationship) is a desperate, impoverished but visionary hack writer who functions for Eliot Rosewater as both conscience and horrid example. Rosewater, seeking to put his inheritance to some meaningful use (his father was an entrepreneur), tries to do good within the context of almost illimitable cynicism and corruption.It is in this novel that Rosewater wanders into a science fiction conference--an actual annual event in Milford, Pennsylvania--and at the motel delivers his famous monologue evoked by science fiction writers and critics for almost half a century: "None of you can write for sour apples... but you're the only people trying to come to terms with the really terrific things which are happening today." Money does not drive Mr. Rosewater (or the corrupt lawyer who tries to shape the Rosewater fortune) so much as outrage at the human condition. The novel was adapted for a 1979 Alan Menken musical. The novel is told mostly thru a collection of short stories dealing with Eliot's interactions with the citizens of Rosewater County, usually with the last sentence serving as a punch line. The antagonist's tale, Mushari's, is told in a similar short essay fashion. The stories reveal different hypocrisies of humankind in a darkly humorous fashion.

Set in Los Angeles in the early 1980's, this coolly mesmerizing novel is a raw, powerful portrait of a lost generation who have experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age, in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money a place devoid of feeling or hope.Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college and re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine. He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark.

Ghost World has become a cultural and generational touchstone, and continues to enthrall and inspire readers over a decade after its original release as a graphic novel. Originally serialized in the pages of the seminal comic book Eightball throughout the mid-1990s, this quasi-autobiographical story (the name of one of the protagonists is famously an anagram of the author's name) follows the adventures of two teenage girls, Enid and Becky, two best friends facing the prospect of growing up, and more importantly, apart. Daniel Clowes is one of the most respected cartoonists of his generation, and Ghost World is his magnum opus. Adapted into a major motion picture directed by Terry Zwigoff (director of the acclaimed documentary Crumb), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. This graphic novel is a must for any self-respecting comics fan's library.

Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

I bought this book cause I was walking through a bookstore with a friend of mine... a friend I adore more than newborn puppies and tiny rabbits hopping in fields of grass, and she said, "MIRANDA JULY! I love her. She made the movie You, Me, and Everyone We Know." I hadn't seen the movie, but I remember seeing an ad in the paper and thinking, "I want to see that movie."And it was because of that, and because I adore this girl more than newborn puppies, and rabbits hopping in fields of grass, and moonlit nights, and sundrenched mornings, that I bought two copies of the book (one for her, and one for me. One could say "Jeff: Nice boy." One has said, "Jeff: Helpless romanitc sucker." I loath both definitions.A book of short stories. Most are delicate. Like something you'd find in your grandmother's junk drawer. Not the one in her kitchen. The one that's the top drawer of her dresser. The one that's filled with pearl buttons, and half knitted doilies, and old black and white photos with a younger version of your grandmother, and complete strangers. You wonder who those people were? What kind of double life did your grandmother lead? Are these people still alive? Does she keep in contact with them? It's a whole world of possibility. You start to see your grandmother in a wholey different light. She's no longer this older woman who is constantly trying to feed or, or berating you for not wearing shoes or not having a job befitting of a college graduate. She's a real person now, with half knitted doilies, and pictures of random people. Old patches that look as if they were ripped off a G.I. uniform. It would break your heart if you asked, and your Grandmother said, "Oh, look at that. You found that in my drawer? No, I have no idea what that is."So you just let your imagination run wild. Some stories fall flat. Like opening your grandmother's junk drawer and finding nail clippers. But at least they're sharp nail clippers... not the kind that break your nails when you try to use them. And sometimes, that's enough to get you through the day.

Jitterbug Perfume is an epic, which is to say, it begins in the forests of ancient Bohemia and doesn't conclude until nine o'clock tonight [Paris time]. It is a saga, as well. A saga must have a hero, and the hero of this one is a janitor with a missing bottle. The bottle is blue, very, very old, and embossed with the image of a goat-horned god. If the liquid in the bottle is actually is the secret essence of the universe, as some folks seem to think, it had better be discovered soon because it is leaking and there is only a drop or two left.

Now hailed as an American classic Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller’s masterpiece, was banned as obscene in this country for twenty-seven years after its first publication in Paris in 1934. Only a historic court ruling that changed American censorship standards, ushering in a new era of freedom and frankness in modern literature, permitted the publication of this first volume of Miller’s famed mixture of memoir and fiction, which chronicles with unapologetic gusto the bawdy adventures of a young expatriate writer, his friends, and the characters they meet in Paris in the 1930s. Tropic of Cancer is now considered, as Norman Mailer said, "one of the ten or twenty great novels of our century."

I can't think of any other book I've read very recently that left my mind as thoroughly blown as Skinny Legs and All. I'd only read one other Tom Robbins book -- Still Life With Woodpecker -- so I was prepared for his playfulness, humor, intricate (but goofy) language, and overall trippy feel that all come with just about everything he rights.But I was not prepared for Skinny Legs. This book is so dense with literary magnificence that you could chew it like you had a whole mouth full of sticky bubble gum. I dog-eared more pages and marked more passages in this book than any other I've ever read by a long shot.Skinny Legs deals with so many topics, many of which are classical in nature: love, sex, family, art, compassion, work, religion. But it all revolves around a more specific point of the conflicts in the Middle East, primarily between Jews and Arabs. There's lots of history, spirituality, and ridiculousness all spun together -- about the Middle East especially but also about everything else surrounding it (both geographically and more abstractly). Were I a teacher of Middle East studies or any subject that dealt with the Judaism/Islam conflict specifically, this book would be required reading if for no other reason than to lighten the tension -- but hopefully also to open some minds and spark a more creative and intelligent dialogue built not on dogma but on critical thinking and compassion.The book says great things about all the topics it touches on, but to the topic of the Middle East specifically it is blazingly relevant and even prophetic in its own right. Even now, with the book being 18 years old, it hasn't lost a lick of power or shown its age. Nothing in the writing itself ever gave me the impression that the book was written any earlier than yesterday.Anyway, I'm mostly just spitting out tidbits -- let me try to formulate something more concrete. It was very, very good. Long and complex, but good. Robbins is a master of language and imagery. He gives the impression of writing with very reckless abandon. It's like he scribbled down every single thing that came to his mind while writing the story, omitting nothing and not even considering apologizing for such craziness. And yet, it works. The madness all comes together without ever seeming structured hardly at all. As if there's not a method to the madness, but that the method IS the madness.In fact I wish my review of the book could be half as perfectly cohesive as the novel itself managed to be in the end. I could rant and ramble about this fantastic book for hours on end (and probably will to my poor unfortunate friends and acquaintances), but I'll just start wrapping up and say that this one is indeed highly recommended. It's not the quickest read in the world because you have to use your brain, sense of humor, and imagination rather extensively and mostly constantly -- but it's very, very worth it.I'm not normally quite this scatterbrained in my reviewing of a book, but it really was that good!

Still Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals and outlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals with the problem of redheads.

This collection of Vonnegut's short masterpieces share his audacious sense of humor and extraordinary creative vision. Includes the stories "Where I Live," "Harrison Bergeron," "Who Am I This Time?," "Welcome to the Monkey House," "Long Walk to Forever," "The Foster Portfolio," "Miss Temptation," "All the King's Horses," "Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog," "New Dictionary," "Next Door," "More Stately Mansions," "The Hyannis Port Story," and "D.P."

Known for his meaty seriocomic novels, Tom Robbins’s shorter work has appeared in publications ranging from Esquire to Harper’s, from Playboy to the New York Times. Collected here for the first time in paperback, the essays, articles, observations—and even some untypical country-music lyrics—offer a rare overview of the eclectic sensibility of an American original. Whether rocking with the Doors, depoliticizing Picasso’s Guernica, lamenting the angst-ridden state of contemporary literature, or drooling over tomato sandwiches and a species of womanhood he calls “the genius waitress,” Tom Robbins’s briefer writings exhibit the five traits that perhaps best characterize his novels: an imaginative wit, a cheerfully brash disregard for convention, a sweetly nasty eroticism, a mystical but keenly observant eye, and an irrepressible love of language. Embedded in this primarily journalistic compilation are brand-new short stories, a sheaf of largely unpublished poems, and an offbeat assessment of our divided nation. Wherever you open Wild Ducks Flying Backward, you’ll encounter the serious playfulness that percolates from the mind of a self-described “romantic Zen hedonist” and “stray dog in the banquet halls of culture.”

"An anthology in which Vonnegut freely quotes himself on everything from art and architecture to madness and mass murder...Uncompromising."--Los Angeles Times "Honest and scarily funny, and it offers a rare insight into an author who has customarily hidden his heart."--New York TimesHere we have a collection of essays and speeches by me, with breezy autobiographical commentary serving as connective tissue and splints and bandages. Here we go again with real life and opinions made to look like one big, preposterous animal not unlike an invention by Dr. Seuss...--Kurt Vonnegut, from Fates Worse Than Death 

1991 collection of essays, speeches, and other previously uncollected writings by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

 A Children's Book About Beer?   Yes, believe it or not—but B Is for Beer is also a book for adults, and bear in mind that it's the work of maverick bestselling novelist Tom Robbins, inter-nationally known for his ability to both seriously illuminate and comically entertain.   Once upon a time (right about now) there was a planet (how about this one?) whose inhabitants consumed thirty-six billion gallons of beer each year (it's a fact, you can Google it). Among those affected, each in his or her own way, by all the bubbles, burps, and foam, was a smart, wide-eyed, adventurous kindergartner named Gracie; her distracted mommy; her insensitive dad; her non-conformist uncle; and a magical, butt-kicking intruder from a world within our world.   Populated by the aforementioned characters—and as charming as it may be subversive—B Is for Beer involves readers, young and old, in a surprising, far-reaching investigation into the limits of reality, the transformative powers of children, and, of course, the ultimate meaning of a tall, cold brewski. 

For more than forty years Miles Davis has been in the front rank of American music. Universally acclaimed as a musical genius, Miles is one of the most important and influential musicians in the world. The subject of several biographies, now Miles speaks out himself about his extraordinary life.Miles: The Autobiography, like Miles himself, holds nothing back. For the first time Miles talks about his five-year silence. He speaks frankly and openly about his drug problem and how he overcame it. He condemns the racism he has encountered in the music business and in American society generally. And he discusses the women in his life. But above all, Miles talks about music and musicians, including the legends he has played with over the years: Bird, Dizzy, Monk, Trane, Mingus, and many others.The man who has given us some of the most exciting music of the past few decades has now given us a compelling and fascinating autobiography, featuring a concise discography and thirty-two pages of photographs.

As the first decade of the new century was getting underway, Spalding Gray worried that the joy he'd finally found with his wife, stepdaughter, and two sons would fail to fuel his work as a theatrical monologist the way anxiety, conflict, doubt, and various crises once had. Before he got the chance to find out, however, an automobile accident in Ireland left him with the lasting wounds of body and spirit that ultimately led him to take his own life. But as his dear friend novelist Francine Prose notes in this volume's foreword, "Even when his depression became so severe that he was barely able to hold a simple conversation, he was, miraculously, able to perform."As was always his method, Gray began to fashion a new monologue in various workshop settings that would tell the story of the accident and its aftermath. Originally titled Black Spot--for what the locals called the section of highway where Gray's accident occurred--it began as a series of workshops at P.S. 122 in New York City and eventually became Life Interrupted.Gray died in early 2004, and though never completed, Life Interrupted is rich with brave self-revelation, masterfully acute observations of wonderfully peculiar people, penetrating wit and genuine humor, an irresolvable fascination with life and death, and all the other attributes of Gray's singular and unmistakable voice.In the final performance of Life Interrupted, Gray read two additional pieces: a short story about a day he spent with his son Theo at the carousel in Central Park and a brief, poignant love letter to New York City that he wrote after the terrorist attacks in 2001. This volume includes these pieces as well as many of the eulogies that were delivered by his friends and family at memorial services held at Lincoln Center and in Sag Harbor.[If you had to reduce all of Spalding's work to its essence, its core, if you wanted to locate the subject to which, no matter what else he talked about, he kept returning, I suppose you could say that his work was a profoundly metaphysical inquiry into how we manage to live despite the knowledge that we are someday going to die. . . .If there is a consolation, it's what he left behind: the children whom he so loved and, of course, his work. Reading the unfinished pieces in this volume . . . we hear his voice again and feel the happiness we felt when he sat on stage behind his wooden desk, took a sip from his water glass, transformed the raw material of his life into art, and the crowd applauded each brilliant, beautiful sentence.] --Francine Prose, from the ForewordAlso available as an eBook

Having detailed the agonies of writing a book in his monologue Monster in a Box, Spalding Gray now gives us the monster itself: a convulsively funny, unexpectedly moving novel about a man eternally searching for a moment of protected pleasure even as he is permanently incapable of finding it.Brewster North witnesses his mother's madness but misses her suicide; searches frantically for enlightenment in the Poconos and zipless sex in India; suffers family ennui in Rhode Island and a nervous breakdown in Amsterdam. In the process he emerges as a hilariously complex everyman. And as Gray narrates his hero's free fall, he confirms his own stature as one of our funniest, most eccentric, and most engaging storytellers.

With My Education: A Book of Dreams William S. Burroughs pushes on into new territory, once again committing the unspeakable crime of questioning the reality structure. Dreams have always been a rich source of imagery in Burroughs' work. In this book they are a direct and powerful force. Hundreds of dreams - intense, vivid, visionary - form the spiraling core of a unique and haunting journey into perception. Exploring and embodying Burroughs' provocative ideas on writing, painting, consciousness and creativity, My Education is profoundly personal, and may be as close to a memoir as we will see.

From Bill Zehme, renowned journalist and author of the "New York Times" bestseller The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin', comes this masterful biography of the late comic genius Andy Kaufman. Based on six years of research, Andy's own unpublished, never-before-seen writings, and hundreds of interviews with family members, friends, and colleagues, Lost in the Funhouse takes us through the maze of Kaufman's mind to see, firsthand, the fanciful landscape that was his life. Andy Kaufman was often a mystery even to his closest friends. Remote, aloof, impossible to know, his internal world was a kaleidoscope of characters fighting for time on the outside. He was as much Andy Kaufman as he was Foreign Man (tenk you veddy much), who became the lovably dithering Latka on the hit TV series "Taxi." He was a contradiction, a paradox on every level, an artist in every sense of the word. In Lost in the Funhouse, Bill Zehme sorts through a life of misinformation put forth by a master of deception to uncover the man behind the legend. Magically entertaining, it is a singular biography matched only by its singular subject.

This is a collection of some of Gray’s early (and best) monologues. These are the yarns that made his reputation as a story-teller in the 1980s: Sex and Death to the Age 14; Booze, Cars, and College Girls; 47 Beds, Nobody Wanted to Sit Behind a Desk, Travels through New England, and Terrors of Pleasure: the House. At his best, Gray brings together several tendencies in American narrative arts – the good-old down east yarn, contemporary New York theatre, and modern “warts and all” confession. He is the cheery wiseacre sitting by a pot-bellied stove on a snowy day, sipping cocoa and telling stories – but he is not talking about catching fish or kids playing with dogs; he is talking about sex, both straight and gay, relationships, obsessions, excessive alcohol consumption, being a peripatetic artist in the free-wheeling 1970s, and being a kid in 1950s Rhode Island.  I remember going to see him at the Performing Garage in Soho, and he was a revelation. He sat at a table and sipped a glass of water, and just told his apparently true tales (this was the Sex and Death monologue, I believe) to an audience of around 50 people. Later on he became famous and did one successful filmed monologue (Swimming to Cambodia) and a less successful one (Monster in a Box). He also wrote a so-so novel, which covers some of the same ground as the monologues, and acted in plays and movies. But this book contains his best stuff, the stuff that made me a fan of his. The first two monologues are classic youthful reminiscences, simultaneously subversive and wholesome. 47 Beds, Nobody Wanted to Sit Behind a Desk, and Travels Through New England recount some of his wanderings in America and Europe, characters he encountered and experiences he had. The last monologue, about buying a troublesome country cabin, is the weakest. He was a terrific story-teller with only one weakness – he could only write about himself. There is no one else like him, and he is missed - but you can see his influence all around, in all the first person monologues and stories that are around these days, and in events like The Moth series.

Swimming Underground is Mary Woronov's blazing memoir about her near lethal experiences in Andy Warhol's Factory in the late '60s. Woronov takes us on a surreal trip through this infamous circle -- including Ondine, Lou Reed, Gerard Malanga, International Velvet, Rotten Rita, and Billy Name -- shooting up speed, starring in Chelsea Girls, living with the Mole people, spinning out of control.

During World War II when all the men are fighting the war, most of the jobs that were left vacant because of their absence were filled in by women. The owners of the baseball teams, not wanting baseball to be dormant indefinitely, decide to form teams with women. So scouts are sent all over the country to find women players. One of the scouts, passes through Oregon and finds a woman named Dottie Hinson, who is incredible. He approaches her and asks her to try out but she's not interested. However, her sister, Kit who wants to get out of Oregon, offers to go. But he agrees only if she can get her sister to go. When they try out, they're chosen and are on the same team. Jimmy Dugan, a former player, who's now a drunk, is the team manager. But he doesn't feel as if it's a real job so he drinks and is not exactly doing his job. So Dottie steps up. After a few months when it appears the girls are not garnering any attention, the league is facing closure till Dottie does something that grabs attention. And it isn't long Dottie is the star of the team and Kit feels like she's living in her shadow.

Harriet M. Welsch is a spy. But when her friends find her secret notebook the tables are turned on her. Can she win her friends back and still keep on going with the spy business?

American tourist Jesse and French student Celine meet by chance on the train from Budapest to Vienna. Sensing that they are developing a connection, Jesse asks Celine to spend the day with him in Vienna, and she agrees. So they pass the time before his scheduled flight the next morning together. How do two perfect strangers connect so intimately over the course of a single day? What is that special thing that bonds two people so strongly? As their bond turns to love, what will happen to them the next morning when Jesse flies away?

An Innuit hunter races his sled home with a fresh-caught halibut. This fish pervades the entire film, in real and imaginary form. Meanwhile, Axel tags fish in New York as a naturalist's gofer. He's happy there, but a messenger arrives to bring him to Arizona for his uncle's wedding. It's a ruse to get Axel into the family business. In Arizona, Axel meets two odd women: vivacious, needy, and plagued by neuroses and familial discord. He gets romantically involved with one, while the other, rich but depressed, plays accordion tunes to a gaggle of pet turtles.

After two Chicago musicians, Joe and Jerry, witness the the St. Valentine's Day massacre, they want to get out of town and get away from the gangster responsible, Spats Colombo. They're desperate to get a gig out of town but the only job they know of is in an all-girl band heading to Florida. They show up at the train station as Josephine and Daphne, the replacement saxophone and bass players. They certainly enjoy being around the girls, especially Sugar Kane Kowalczyk who sings and plays the ukulele. Joe in particular sets out to woo her while Jerry/Daphne is wooed by a millionaire, Osgood Fielding III. Mayhem ensues as the two men try to keep their true identities hidden and Spats Colombo and his crew show up for a meeting with several other crime lords.

What's Eating Gibert Grape is a beautifully shot movie of tenderness, caring and self-awareness that is set amongst the fictional working class one street town Endora. Centred around the Grape family Ellen and Amy and their two brothers Arnie and Gilbert, who, along with their morbidly obese widowed mother Bonnie Grape are striving to survive and coexist with the absence of a father figure, low wage work and seventeen-year-old Arnie's severe mental condition. It is in this awkward and extremely one sided affair that the unfortunate Gilbert has to constantly, while working for the town's slowly dying convenience store, take care of his younger brother Arnie. Gilbert's life, his future, is thwarted he knows this, but it is in this guardian angel that his love and bond for Arnie cannot, and will not, be let go. That is until the free spirit of Becky arrives in town, and with her grandmother are stranded for the week while waiting for parts for their vehicle. This realization unties new feelings, new thoughts and new hope for the put upon Gibert, something new is eating Gilbert Grape.

Clay, an eighteen-year-old freshman, comes back from his first term at Princeton to spend his Christmas vacation with his broken-up wealthy family in Los Angeles. His former girlfriend, Blair, is now involved with his ex-best-friend, Julian. She warns Clay that Julian needs help: he is using a lot of cocaine and has huge debts. What follows is a look at the youth culture of wealthy post adolescents in Beverly Hills with a strong anti-drug message. Apart from the setting and the names, the film has very little to do with Bret Easton Ellis's book by the same title on which it was based.

Frustrated punk rocker Otto quits his supermarket job after slugging a co-worker, and is later dumped by his girlfriend at a party. Wandering the streets in frustration, he is recruited in the repossession of a car by a repo agent. After discovering his parents have donated his college fund to a televangelist, he joins the repossession agency (Helping Hand Acceptance Corporation) as an apprentice "repo man". During his training, he is introduced into the mercenary and paranoid world of the drivers, befriended by a UFO conspiracy theorist, confronted by rival repo agents, discovers some of his one-time friends have turned to a life of crime, is lectured to near cosmic unconsciousness by the repo agency grounds worker, and finds himself entangled in a web of intrigue concerning a huge repossession bounty on a 1964 Chevy Malibu driven by a lunatic government scientist, with Top Secret cargo in the trunk.

Late one night, a beautiful and well-dressed young woman, Grace (Nicole Kidman), arrives in the mountainous old mining town of Dogville as a fugitive; following the sound of gunshots in the distance which have been heard by Tom (Paul Bettany), the self-appointed moral spokesman for the town. Persuaded by Tom, the town agree to hide Grace, and in return she freely helps the locals. However, when the Sheriff from a neighbouring town posts a Missing notice, advertising a reward for revealing her whereabouts, the townsfolk require a better deal from Grace, in return for their silence; and when the Sheriff returns some weeks later with a Wanted poster, even though the citizens know her to be innocent of the false charges against her, the town's sense of goodness takes a sinister turn and the price of Grace's freedom becomes a workload and treatment akin to that of a slave. But Grace has a deadly secret that the townsfolk will eventually encounter.

Neddy Merrill has been away for most of the Summer. He reappears at a friend's pool. As they talk, someone notices that there are pools spanning the entire valley. He decided to jog from pool to pool to swim across the whole valley. As he stops in each pool his interactions tell his life story.

Romantic comedy about six of Seattle's young people, most of whom live in the same apartment building and whose lives revolve around the city's ever-expanding music scene. The inter-related stories about each character's progress through the singles scene are intriguing and often very funny, and the soundtrack is a grunge fanatic's dream, with the likes of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Mudhoney.

Charles Sanford "Charlie" Babbit is a self-centered Los Angeles-based automobile dealer/hustler/bookie who is at war with his own life. Charlie, as a young teenager, used his father's 1949 Buick convertible without permission and as a result, he went to jail for two days on account that his father reported it stolen. It is then that Charlie learns that his estranged father died and left him from his last will and testament a huge bed of roses and the car while the remainder will of $3 Million goes into a trust fund to be distributed to someone. Charlie seemed pretty angry by this and decides to look into this matter. It seems as if that "someone" is Raymond, Charlie's unknown brother, an autistic savant who lives in a world of his own, resides at the Walbrook Institute. Charlie then kidnaps Raymond and decides to take him on a lust for life trip to the west coast as a threat to get the $3 Million inheritance. Raymond's acts and nagging, including repeated talks of "Abbott & Costello", "Four minutes till Wapner" and refusal to fly on an airline except Qantas drives Charlie insane... and out of his selfish world into a cross-country trek of pure love and understanding that these two both have.

Following the death of his father from cancer, Stéphane - Mexican on his father's side, French on his mother's side - agrees, despite his less than proficient use of the French language, on his mother's request to move back to France from Mexico, she not only letting him live in her apartment in his old bedroom in the building she owns while she stays with her current boyfriend Gérard, a magician, but she having found him a job using his graphic art skills at a calendar shop. The job ends up not being quite as she had made it out to be - it more a dead end menial job - but Stéphane is still able to eke out a friendship of sorts with his new coworkers, especially Guy, the senior employee, a bully of a man-child who obsesses about sex and who becomes Stéphane's confidante. Concurrently, Stéphane strikes a friendship with his neighbor, Stéphanie, and her friend, Zoé, Stéphane and their friendship stemming out of some mistruths, including the two artistically inclined women not divulging they, like him, lead dead end nine-to-five jobs, and Stéphane also not divulging that he is actually Stéphanie's neighbor and the son of her landlady which allows him to spy on Stéphanie's apartment without notice. While Stéphane is romantically interested in Zoé, he believes Stéphanie in turn is interested in him. Regardless, Stéphane forms a special bond with Stéphanie, their similar names only one of the many factors which may indicate that the cosmos meant for them to have this bond. Despite what Stéphanie may feel for Stéphane in return, their friendship/relationship will be affected by Stéphane often not being able to differentiate between reality and what are, to him, his very vivid dreams.

In idyllic Mid-Coast Maine, the Fowler family's only son Frank comes home from his freshman year at college for summer vacation. His mother Ruth, the school choir director, is unhappy with Frank dating soon-to-be divorced mother Natalie who is several years his senior, but Frank's father Matt, the town doctor, doesn't see a problem. While Frank considers holding off his future for Natalie, her jilted husband causes them all problems until an unthinkable tragedy shakes the community to its very core.

Tokyo's nasty underside, seen primarily through the eyes of Oscar, a heavy drug user, whose sister Linda is a stripper. Oscar also has flashbacks to his childhood when trauma upends the siblings. Oscar's drug-fed hallucinations alter Tokyo's already-disconcerting nights, and after the police shoot him, he can float above and look down: on his sister's sorrow, on the rooms of a love hotel, and on life at even a molecular level. The spectrum's colors can be beautiful; it's people's colorless lives that can be ugly. And what of afterlife, is there more than a void?

A boy who grew up in a native Sicilian Village returns home as a famous director after receiving news about the death of an old friend. Told in a flashback, Salvatore reminiscences about his childhood and his relationship with Alfredo, a projectionist at Cinema Paradiso. Under the fatherly influence of Alfredo, Salvatore fell in love with film making, with the duo spending many hours discussing about films and Alfredo painstakingly teaching Salvatore the skills that became a stepping stone for the young boy into the world of film making. The film brings the audience through the changes in cinema and the dying trade of traditional film making, editing and screening. It also explores a young boy's dream of leaving his little town to foray into the world outside.

Besotted with cheap crime fiction, cinema, and popular culture, bored-to-death English language students Franz and Arthur love to live in a dream world. Indeed, the pair of layabouts fancy themselves to be a gang. But, in the meantime, Franz and Arthur vie for the attention of their romantic classmate Odile, who naively tips them off about a mountain of cash stashed in an unlocked cabinet in Aunt Victoria's suburban house in Joinville-le-Pont. Of course, the amateur criminals take an immediate interest in wide-eyed Odile's incidental mention and start to iron out the details of an audacious robbery, just like in the movies. However, what happens if Arthur's uncle and all-powerful love stand in the way of the perfect heist?

Chris Taylor is a young, naive American who gives up college and volunteers for combat in Vietnam. Upon arrival, he quickly discovers that his presence is quite nonessential, and is considered insignificant to the other soldiers, as he has not fought for as long as the rest of them and felt the effects of combat. Chris has two non-commissioned officers, the ill-tempered and indestructible Staff Sergeant Robert Barnes and the more pleasant and cooperative Sergeant Elias Grodin. A line is drawn between the two NCOs and a number of men in the platoon when an illegal killing occurs during a village raid. As the war continues, Chris himself draws towards psychological meltdown. And as he struggles for survival, he soon realizes he is fighting two battles, the conflict with the enemy and the conflict between the men within his platoon.

1986 American war film directed by Oliver Stone

Based on a true story. After graduating from Emory University, Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire savings account to charity, and hitchhiked to Alaska to live in the wilderness. Along the way, Christopher encounters a series of characters who shape his life.

English singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist

Canadian poet and singer-songwriter (1934–2016)

American singer-songwriter and actor (born 1949)

actor, dramatist, playwright, screenwriter (1941-2004)

American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality (1939-2010)

film maker and cartoonist from Los Angeles

American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, novelist

Set in the idyllic but fragile beach paradise of sunny 1980s San Diego, Physical is a half-hour dark comedy following Sheila Rubin, a quietly tortured, seemingly dutiful housewife supporting her smart but controversial husband's bid for state assembly. But behind closed doors, Sheila has her own darkly funny take on life she rarely lets the world see. She's also battling a complex set of personal demons relating to her self-image; that is until she finds release through the unlikeliest source: the world of aerobics. At first hooked on the exercise itself, Sheila's real road to empowerment comes when she discovers a way to merge this newfound passion with the burgeoning technology of videotape to start a revolutionary business. The series tracks her epic journey from a stifled, overlooked enabler to a powerful, confident economic force, as Sheila transforms into someone we take for granted today but was entirely radical at the time- the female lifestyle guru.

Centers on Sam Loudermilk, a recovering alcoholic and substance abuse counselor with a bad attitude. Although he has his drinking under control, Loudermilk discovers that when your life is a mess, getting clean is the easy part.

A drama that swoops in on Empire Falls, an economically depressed mill town in Maine, and lifetime resident Miles Roby, who's run the town's top restaurant for some twenty years. Miles is surrounded by his newly thin wife, meddling father, and hostile boss.

In 1969 London, the editor of an underground magazine and his friends get into wacky situations.

BBC comedy series parodying the works of Charles Dickens and heavily influenced by a similar, long-running radio series. A respectable shopkeeper, Jedrington Secret-Past, (unsurprisingly) discovers that he has a secret past.

Comedy exploring the lives of young people in modern rural Britain, focusing on cousins Kerry and Kurtan and their lives in the Cotswolds.

The comic daily lives of three misfits who share a London flat. Beautiful, intelligent blonde Mandy can't seem to keep a job or keep the wrong men from falling in love with her; Matthew owns that flat but can't step outside yet still manages to live out some bizarre fantasies much to his flatmates' chagrin; and red-haired dreamer Martin can't seem to find the right woman but while he looks he has an on/off relationship with Clare.

BBC sitcom broadcast between 1995 and 1998

Cornwall, early 19th century. A recently orphaned young woman by the name of Mary arrives to live with her aunt and uncle after the death of her widowed mother. It isn't long before Mary learns that her aunt's husband, Joss, leads a band of criminals who cause shipwrecks for profit. Coming closer to the truth of everything will cause Mary to fear for her life.

British drama created by Jimmy McGovern. The seven-part serial is inspired by events in the eighteenth century when Britain established a penal colony in Australia.

Margaret Wells struggles to reconcile her roles as brothel owner and mother to her daughters. When her business comes under attack from a rival madam with a ruthless streak, Margaret must fight back even if it means losing her family and possibly her life.

Period drama set in London about the rise of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Z is a biography series based on the life of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, the brilliant, beautiful and talented Southern Belle who becomes the original flapper and icon of the wild, flamboyant Jazz Age in the 20s. Starring Christina Ricci (Monster) as Zelda Fitzgerald, Z starts before she meets the unpublished writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (David Hoflin), and moves through their passionate, turbulent love affair and their marriage-made in heaven, lived out in hell as the celebrity couple of their time. The series travels through the wild parties, the wicked jazz, the dissolute artists of the era, as well as the alcoholism, adultery and struggle with dashed dreams and mental illness that characterizes their later years.

In the wake of the Fronde in 1667, the French nobility have begun to defy and disobey the monarchy. Young King Louis XIV decides to move the court from the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye near Paris to his father's former hunting lodge near the hamlet of Versailles as a means to force their submission. As Louis renovates and expands his new Palace of Versailles, the nobles-displaced from their usual surroundings but compelled to surround the king-become embroiled in increasingly dangerous intrigues.

2010s historical fiction television series

As the Russian conflict with Napoleon reaches its peak, five aristocratic families face the possibility of their lives being changed forever.

Executive Producer and Writer Gwyneth Hughes' adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray's literary classic is set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, and follows Becky Sharp (Olivia Cooke) as she attempts to claw her way out of poverty and scale the heights of English Society. Her story of "villainy, crime, merriment, lovemaking, jilting, laughing, cheating, fighting, and dancing", takes her all the way to the court of King George IV, via the Battle of Waterloo, breaking hearts and losing fortunes as she goes.

Rome, 1973. John Paul Getty III, the heir and younger member of an oil tycoons' saga, is kidnapped by the Italian mafia in order to get a ransom. On the face of it, his grandfather seems not interested at all in having him back, but he gives his reasons, for better or for worse.

"American Experience" combines dramatic re-enactments with commentary by historians and authors to present an absorbing look at the personalities, events and resources that have had a profound impact on the shaping of America's past and present.

UK comedians relate their favourite historical stories while drunk.

A portrayal of one of the most dramatic and turbulent times in English history. A story of love and lust, seduction and deception, betrayal and murder, it is uniquely told through the perspective of three different, yet equally relentless women - Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort and Anne Neville. In their quest for power, they will scheme, manipulate and seduce their way onto the English throne. The year is 1464, before the Tudor dynasty ruled the country, and war has been ravaging throughout England over who is the rightful King. It is a bitter dispute between two sides of the same family, The House of York and The House of Lancaster. The House of York's young and handsome Edward IV is crowned King of England with the help of the master manipulator, Lord Warwick "The Kingmaker." But when Edward falls in love with a beautiful Lancastrian commoner, Elizabeth Woodville, Warwick's plan to control the throne comes crashing down. A violent, high-stakes struggle ensues between Elizabeth, her most fierce adversary, Lancastrian Margaret Beaufort, and Anne Neville, the pawn in her father's power game - each woman vying for the crown.

British historical drama television series

A royal woman living in rural Russia during the 18th century is forced to choose between her own personal happiness and the future of Russia, when she marries an Emperor.

2020 British-American comedy series on Hulu

bob beilz

 LISA HALE

Two teenagers, both newcomers to London, forge an unlikely friendship over the course of a hot summer. Tomo is a runaway from Nottingham; Marek lives in the district of Somers Town, between King's Cross and Euston stations, where his dad is working on a new rail link. The boys are both infatuated with the same girl, and pass their days bickering over which of them loves her the most. Finding himself homeless, Tomo surreptitiously moves into Marek's bedroom - but it's only a matter of time before Marek's dad discovers what's going on...

Diana, a stubborn mermaid, is determined to bring justice to the men who killed her merman father. Never having lived out of water before, she enlists the help of her two sisters (already living on land) to track down the murderers. Diana finds that her sister, Venus, is an aquatic dancer in a seedy bar who was forced into the position by the evil bar owner who has taken Venus' magic tiara, giving him ultimate control of her. June, the third sister, works at the local aquarium and is able to recruit the help of her friend, and love interest, Randy, a coast guard officer, to help the mermaids track down their father's killers. The sisters join forces and along the way, discover how difficult it is to be a fish out of water, and how meaningful sisterhood is.

A girl with insomnia who works in a coffee house has impossibly high standards for her love and fears she will never meet a worthy man. Then in walks a new employee and they click - until she discovers he has a girlfriend. Undaunted, she moves to L.A. with a friend sure that he will dump the girlfriend and follow her. She puts all her faith in fate and hopes for the best.

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