Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Auriel W

Blake Molmen

Dani Shahar

Luis Javier Campos nieto

Frank, no ordinary sixteen-year-old, lives with his father outside a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; and his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return - an event that explodes the mysteries of the past and changes Frank utterly.The Wasp Factory is a work of horrifying compulsion: horrifying, because it enters a mind whose realities are not our own, whose values of life and death are alien to our society; compulsive, because the humour and compassion of that mind reach out to us all. A novel of extraordinary originality, imagination and comic ferocity.

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.

The shocking thing about the girls was how nearly normal they seemed when their mother let them out for the one and only date of their lives. Twenty years on, their enigmatic personalities are embalmed in the memories of the boys who worshipped them and who now recall their shared adolescence: the brassiere draped over a crucifix belonging to the promiscuous Lux; the sisters' breathtaking appearance on the night of the dance; and the sultry, sleepy street across which they watched a family disintegrate and fragile lives disappear.

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 really have no idea how to describe this book, it was mesmerising. Richard, a British backpacker arrives in Bangkok and on his first night in a hostel is given a map that leads to a so-called Eden, a secret beach that few travellers know about. So with French couple Etienne and Francoise in tow, they try to find the island. When they do life is idyllic for a while, then cracks start to appear, and they find that their Eden isn't the Paradise it seems.I can't even pinpoint what it is about this book, that a simple tale of backpackers on an island beach could be unputdownable. But it is. It is that and so much more. Highly Recommended.

"A low crime-rate doctor," she told him amiably, "is a sure sign of social deprivation."Anthony Royal built the Titanic of skyscrapers.  \
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A state of the art, megalithic structure suitable for 2,000 tenants. It is a self-contained environment with everything a tenant would need such as shopping or exercise or even schools for their kids. The people the building attracts are white collar, well educated, professionals. The apartments sell out quickly and as everyone start to settle into their new lives glitches start to occur. Despite the developing problems entire floor parties are standard weekend entertainment. A bottle drops from a higher floor and shatters on Dr. Robert Laing's balcony and it is equivalent to the first canon fired on Fort Sumter. As the week continues more bottles are dropped and other assorted trash begins to fall from the sky. A rich jeweler plummets from his upper level apartment onto the roof of a car. Resentment is building between levels. The perceived richest people, where Anthony Royal resides, are on the upper levels. The middle level people, where Dr. Robert Laing reside, are resentful of the upper levels, but also becoming more disdainful of the lower levels. Richard Wilder, a man working on a documentary about human behavior, lives in the lower levels. The trash is accumulating on the ground floor, the trash chutes become jammed and more and more trash is being hoisted over the side of the building creating an intolerable situation for the lower tenants. Electricity winks out leaving entire floors without power for days at a time. "Five floors were without electricity. At night the dark bands stretched across the face of the high-rise like dead strata in a fading brain."The air condition goes out and when it does come back on it only trickles out for a few minutes before failing again. The lower levels bear the worst of the malfunctions with the upper levels remaining relatively unaffected. Resentments build and as tenants become more and more irritated the civilized structure of the building starts to erode. This is the point of the novel when J.G. Ballard asks the reader to suspend belief. Yes, he is creepy; and yes, he has a pink beach ball; and yes, he wants to play with your mind. \
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The three levels of the building go to war with each other. People are beaten. Women are raped. Graffiti is sprayed on the walls. The building breaks down into tribal units with lower levels trying to conquer and take over higher levels of the building. "Not for the fist time Laing reflected that he and his neighbors were eager for trouble as the most effective means of enlarging their sex lives.The problem I have is that the outside world is perfectly normal. Civilization is existing just fine. There is no cataclysmic event that has ruptured the natural order of things. To return to the world of order is as simple as leaving the building. These are highly educated people who have benefited greatly from living in a society that allows them to make money using their brains. I found it hard to believe that these people would so easily transition to a tribal warfare society. "They discussed the latest ruses for obtaining food and women, for defending the upper floors against marauders, their plans for alliance and betrayal. Now the new order had emerged, in which all life within the high-rise revolved around three obsessions-security, food and sex."This is the adults gone wild version of Lord of the Flies. I didn't like Lord of the Flies so maybe I just don't like books about mob culture. Ballard didn't sell me on this concept, not that I don't believe that intelligent, well educated people are incapable of marinating in the swamp juices of the lizard brain, but I didn't feel it would happen under the circumstances that Ballard presented. I am still curious to explore more in Ballard's world and I look forward to reading more of his work. I'll leave you with some parting thoughts from Doctor Laing."Would he soon be the last person alive in the high-rise? He thought of himself in this enormous building, free to roam its floors and concrete galleries, to climb its silent elevator shafts, to sit by himself in turn on every one of its thousand balconies. This dream, longed for since his arrival at the high-rise, suddenly unnerved him, almost as if, at last alone here, he had heard footsteps in the next room and come face to face with himself."If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.comI also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten

Exactly one week in the life of a young man named Paterson of Paterson, New Jersey is presented. He lives an extremely regimented and routinized life, that routine perhaps most vividly displayed by the fact that he is able to wake up at exactly the same time every day without an alarm. That life includes eating Cheerios for breakfast, walking to work carrying his brown bag lunch packed in his lunch pail by his wife Laura, having a casual chat with his colleague Donny before he begins his shift driving the #23 Paterson bus for the local public transit company, walking home where he straightens out the exterior mailbox which somehow during the day gets knocked crooked, eating dinner with Laura and listening to her goings-on of the day, taking Laura's English bulldog Marvin - who he would admit to himself he doesn't much like - out for a walk to his neighborhood bar where he has one and only one beer before walking home with Marvin. There are day to day variations which are often the result of how certain other routines associated to him manifest themselves, such as what drama will occur in the relationship of Marie and Everett who are always at the bar together despite her always saying that they are no longer together, or in what form Laura's unique and distinctive design sense will affect Paterson's life directly or indirectly. Paterson's keen observances of what happens around him are largely the bases for the poems he writes, he constantly thinking of these and writing them in his secret notebook whenever he has a spare moment during his day. He is influenced by among others Paterson natives such as

Class struggle becomes all too real as a young doctor moves into a modern apartment block in suburban 1975 London. Drugs, drink & debauchery dissolve into murder, mayhem and misogyny in this pseudo-post-apocalyptic breakdown of societal norms.

Cleo is one of two domestic workers who help Antonio and Sofía take care of their four children in 1970s Mexico City. Complications soon arise when Antonio suddenly runs away with his mistress and Cleo finds out that she's pregnant. When Sofía decides to take the kids on vacation, she invites Cleo for a much-needed getaway to clear her mind and bond with the family.

The last female beehunter in Europe must save the bees and return the natural balance in Honeyland, when a family of nomadic beekeepers invade her land and threaten her livelihood. This film which is filmed in Macedonia is an exploration of an observational Indigenous visual narrative that deeply impacts our behavior towards natural resources and the human condition.

Deep in the forests of Northern Italy resides the prized white Alba truffle. Desired by the wealthiest patrons in the world, it remains a pungent but rarified mystery. It cannot be cultivated or found, even by the most resourceful of modern excavators. The only souls on Earth who know how to dig it up are a tiny circle of canines and their silver-haired human companions-Italian elders with walking sticks and devilish senses of humor-who only scour for the truffle at night so as not to leave any clues for others. Still, this small enclave of hunters induces a feverish buying market that spans the globe. With unprecedented access to the elusive truffle hunters, filmmakers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (The Last Race, 2018 Sundance Film Festival) follow this maddening cycle from the forest floor to the pristine restaurant plate. With a wily and absurdist flare, The Truffle Hunters captures a precarious ritual constantly threatened by greed and outside influences but still somehow protected by those clever, tight-lipped few who know how to unearth the magic within nature.

2020 film directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw

Following the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad. The third feature film from director Chloé Zhao, NOMADLAND features real nomads Linda May, Swankie and Bob Wells as Fern's mentors and comrades in her exploration through the vast landscape of the American West.

From dawn to dusk, a few hours in the life of Monsieur Oscar, a shadowy character who journeys from one life to the next. He is, in turn, captain of industry, assassin, beggar, monster, family man. He seems to be playing roles, plunging headlong into each part - but there are no cameras present.

Zorg is a handyman working at the seaside in France, maintaining and looking after the wooden bungalows. He lives a quiet and peaceful life, working diligently and writing in his spare time. He is in love with Betty, a young woman who is as beautiful as she is wild and unpredictable. After a dispute with Zorg's boss, they leave and Betty finds a place to stay at her girlfriend's house. The girlfriend's lover owns an Italian restaurant and there they find a job. She is obsessed to try to get one of Zorg's books published, but it is rejected, which makes Betty fly into a rage. Suddenly, Betty's wild manners start to get out of control. Zorg sees the woman he loves slowly going insane. Is his love for Betty strong enough, if even if it comes to the worst?

1986 film directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix

The wife of a barbaric crime boss engages in a secretive romance with a gentle bookseller between meals at her husband's restaurant. Food, colour coding, sex, murder, torture, and cannibalism are the exotic fare in this beautifully filmed, but brutally uncompromising modern fable.

Pig and Runt - born on the same day, in the same hospital, moments apart. Twins, all but by blood. Inseparable from birth, they are almost telepathic. They are also partners in crime, with an appetite for recklessness, exploration and destruction. But days before their 17th birthday the perfect balance of their world begins to shift. Pig's sexual awakening and increasing jealousy begins to threaten the private universe they have spent their lives constructing. Unable to contemplate the loss of Runt, Pig's unpredictable nature spirals out of control in a trail of violence. The invisible thread between them is stretched to breaking point, the inseparable are about to separate, and which one will survive depends on which one can break free.

The story of Lena, the light-skinned daughter of an Aboriginal mother and Irish father and Vaughn, a Murri boy doing time in a minimum security prison in North West NSW. Dramatic events throw them together on a journey with no money and no transport. To Lena, Vaughn represents the life she is running away from. To Vaughn, Lena embodies the society that has rejected him. And for a very short amount of time, they experience a rare true happiness together.

Taking place in 1983, Red is a lumberjack who lives in a secluded cabin in the woods. His artist girlfriend Mandy spends her days reading fantasy paperbacks. Then one day, she catches the eye of a crazed cult leader, who conjures a group of motorcycle-riding demons to kidnap her. Red, armed with a crossbow and custom Axe, stops at nothing to get her back, leaving a bloody, brutal pile of bodies in his wake.

Tina, who has grotesque, almost animal-like physical features, has always felt self-conscious about her looks. Regardless, she has: a live-in boyfriend, Roland, a dog trainer, at her isolated house in the woods, although they have never had sex, and Tina's father, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, believing he is solely using her; the unconditional love and support of her father; a small group of friends; and the admiration of her bosses and coworkers in her job as a customs agent at the Ferry terminal, as she is literally able to "smell" human emotions, especially guilt and fear. It is using that innate ability that she stops a seemingly straight-laced person entering the country, he who was found to be carrying a memory card containing child pornography. As such, her immediate supervisor, Agneta, places her on a small investigative unit to discover the producers of this material. Tina is surprised when she is found to be incorrect about another person going through customs, Vore, an entomologist who, like her, possesses those similar grotesque, almost animal-like physical features, he who is found not to be carrying anything incriminating. In Vore and Tina's multiple encounters at customs, the two begin a friendship, Tina, for the first time, believing she having found a kindred spirit. As Tina learns more and more about Vore, the more she learns about herself. As more and more information comes to light, Tina has to decide whether to abandon the life she has known in its entirety for the future that Vore offers her, that future which may go against what she has always believed to be the good about being human.

Ema, a young dancer, decides to separate from Gastón after giving back Polo, the son they both adopted and were unable to raise. In a desperate search through the streets of the port city of Valparaíso, Ema seeks love affairs in order to overcome her guilt. However, she has a secret plan to recover everything she's lost.

Michèle seems indestructible. Head of a successful video game company, she brings the same ruthless attitude to her love life as to business. Being attacked in her home by an unknown assailant changes Michèle's life forever. When she resolutely tracks the man down, they are both drawn into a curious and thrilling game-a game that may, at any moment, spiral out of control.

Marcello, a small and gentle dog groomer, finds himself involved in a dangerous relationship of subjugation with Simone, a former violent boxer who terrorizes the entire neighborhood. In an effort to reaffirm his dignity, Marcello will submit to an unexpected act of vengeance.

A dysfunctional couple head to a remote cabin to reconnect, but each has intentions to kill the other. Before they can carry out their plans, unexpected visitors arrive and they face a greater danger.

Phoebe powell

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes--each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned--becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

A harrowing story of breakdowns, suicide attempts, drug therapy, and an eventual journey back to living, this poignant and often hilarious book gives voice to the high incidence of depression among America's youth. A collective cry for help from a generation who have come of age entrenched in the culture of divorce, economic instability, and AIDS, here is the intensely personal story of a young girl full of promise, whose mood swings have risen and fallen like the lines of a sad ballad.

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