Edgar Colt

Vitor Miguel

Prisma Soulstorm

Serena

Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Hell is not other people. Hell is any holiday dinner with relatives.Fashionable in the 50s, and still required reading in prep schools and many colleges, Sartre's play - once ventilated - is a discursive product of Dada and Existentialism mixed with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and a lot of Pernod. In the mid-40s it made him the darling of the  boozoisie  in Montparnasse. Actually, he was inspired by Wedekind and Strindberg. An interesting thinker, Sarte here overlooks his own contradictions : though each man is his own hell, he states, hell is -- hold on ! -- other people. With 3 characters, this play is a fav among college drama depts and many regional theatres. The original Broadway production in 1946 was directed x John Huston and had, we're told, a superb set by the artist Frederick Kiesler. It also had an adaptation x Paul Bowles. Others must be avoided. ~ Competing with Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun, Margaret Rutherford as OWs Lady Bracknell and Ingrid Bergman in a paraphrase of St Joan, it vanished after 4 weeks. But Sartre, the playwright  manque,  still lingers as he examines our loneliness in a bleak, disinterested world. More importantly, he foreshadows the absurdist work of Beckett, Ionesco and Pinter.

Cannery Row is a book without much of a plot. Rather, it is an attempt to capture the feeling and people of a place, the cannery district of Monterey, California, which is populated by a mix of those down on their luck and those who choose for other reasons not to live "up the hill" in the more respectable area of town. The flow of the main plot is frequently interrupted by short vignettes that introduce us to various denizens of the Row, most of whom are not directly connected with the central story. These vignettes are often characterized by direct or indirect reference to extreme violence: suicides, corpses, and the cruelty of the natural world.The "story" of Cannery Row follows the adventures of Mack and the boys, a group of unemployed yet resourceful men who inhabit a converted fish-meal shack on the edge of a vacant lot down on the Row.Sweet Thursday is the sequel to Cannery Row.

Into the 'autobiography' of Clau-Clau-Claudius, the pitiful stammerer who was destined to become Emperor in spite of himself, Graves packs the everlasting intrigues, the depravity, the bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, soon to culminate in the deified insanity of Caligula.I, Claudius and its sequel, Claudius the God, are among the most celebrated, as well the most gripping historical novels ever written.Cover illustration: Brian Pike

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by the famous Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or simply Jekyll &amp; Hyde. It is about a London lawyer named John Gabriel Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde.

Wise Blood, Flannery O’Connor’s astonishing and haunting first novel, is a classic of twentieth-century literature. It is a story of Hazel Motes, a twenty-two-year-old caught in an unending struggle against his innate, desperate faith. He falls under the spell of a "blind" street preacher named Asa Hawks and his degenerate fifteen-year-old daughter, Lily Sabbath. In an ironic, malicious gesture of his own non-faith, and to prove himself a greater cynic than Hawkes, Hazel Motes founds The Church of God Without Christ, but is still thwarted in his efforts to lose God. He meets Enoch Emery, a young man with "wise blood," who leads him to a mummified holy child, and whose crazy maneuvers are a manifestation of Hazel's existential struggles. This tale of redemption, retribution, false prophets, blindness, blindings, and wisdoms gives us one of the most riveting characters in twentieth-century American fiction.

There is a lot of talk about Kafka and nightmares – and with good reason. However, his nightmares are never quite what you might expect - expectations are always a problem when reading Kafka, firsst they get in the way and then they get dashed. In Metamorphosis there is the ‘yuck’ factor of the main character becoming an insect – but that is hardly the ‘nightmare’ of that book. In The Trial the point is in being accused of something, but never being told what it is you have been accused of, but still needing to defend yourself in some way all the same. The Castle is even more of a nightmare again. This book was never finished and the version I’ve just finished reading ends where Kafka abandoned it, mid-sentence, with yet another new character about to say something terribly important to the central character ‘K’. You might think that this would be a bit of a pain – in fact, the book ending was a relief. Like waking from a nightmare it really is okay that it is over. There was never going to be a happy ending to this book.That might make it sound like I didn’t enjoy reading it – and that wouldn’t be the right impression to leave you with. This is a remarkable book and one that has much to say about how we construct our reality and how we interpret the realities constructed by others to explain how their world ‘works’. That is what the book is 'about' - and a sensitive reader will be struck by how often they interpret what is going on around them with as little 'proof' to try to make sense of the world.Of course, the book could be a guide book on how to construct a totalitarian regime – if such a guide book was ever needed. Let’s face it, we humans, even the best of us, are remarkably innovative when it comes to constructing nightmares for others to live in and really don’t need any instructions from fiction. I mean, Abu Ghraib anyone? No, I think not.The way to construct a Kafkaesque nightmare – if you are ever in charge of such things and are feeling a little bored – is to add endless levels to society and virtually no real communication between any of these levels - except, of course orders that must be followed - but must be first interpreted by those who receive them. Then create bizarre rituals (investigations or committee meetings or such) that either have no meaning at all or infinitely more meaning than can be guessed from them. These can take place in bedrooms, so they appear to be informal, but actually are the opposite. Make sure minor decisions that seem to have no import end up being life altering in ways that are completely unpredictable. In fact, make sure that just about every outcome can’t be predicted prior to it happening.Yes, I know, it all sounds a bit like home…Which is the problem with reading Kafka – it is very familiar, it is the familiar turned up loud. But then, aren’t those always the worst kind of nightmares?

MetaFrom what point of view should I review the book? Evidently: from all possible points of view.SnobbishNeedless to say, I am reading the original French edition. I can hardly believe that his delicate linguistic irony would survive translation into English. Quelle horreur!VulgarI laughed until I wet myself. Well, I should know better than to read this kind of book in the bathroom.PedanticIf nothing else, very educational. I have already learned the names of two figures of speech I didn't previously know.AnxiousWait... maybe someone else has already done this joke? Let me check the reviews. Oh, thank GoodReads, they haven't!PessimisticThe idea is certainly amusing at first. But I doubt he'll be able to keep it up for 99 different versions.GrudgingAlright... this isn't as easy as one first thinks. I'm not even up to double figures, and I'm already running out of ideas. He was a smart guy.MinimalistUnique.Conscience-strickenI'm doing this? I should be working! But he is quite inspiring.PracticalI will put the book on the coffee table, and read a couple of pages every now and then. I don't think you're meant to go cover-to-cover. Also, living in Cambridge as we do, I am sure that at least half our visitors will enjoy leafing through it.

The finest of all Conrad's tales, Heart of Darkness is set in an atmosphere of mystery and menace, and tells of Marlow's perilous journey up the Congo River to relieve his employer's agent, the renowned and formidable Mr. Kurtz. What he sees on his journey, and his eventual encounter with Kurtz, horrify and perplex him, and call into question the very bases of civilization and human nature. Endlessly reinterpreted by critics and adapted for film, radio, and television, the story shows Conrad at his most intense and sophisticated. The other three tales in this volume depict corruption and obsession, and question racial assumptions. Set in the exotic surroundings of Africa, Malaysia, and the east, they variously appraise the glamour, folly, and rapacity of imperial adventure. This revised edition uses the English first edition texts and has a new chronology and bibliography.

Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fancy often leads him astray—he tilts at windmills, imagining them to be giants—Sancho acquires cunning and a certain sagacity. Sane madman and wise fool, they roam the world together, and together they have haunted readers' imaginations for nearly four hundred years.With its experimental form and literary playfulness, Don Quixote has been generally recognized as the first modern novel. The book has been enormously influential on a host of writers, from Fielding and Sterne to Flaubert, Dickens, Melville, and Faulkner, who reread it once a year, "just as some people read the Bible."

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

Swann's Way tells two related stories, the first of which revolves around Marcel, a younger version of the narrator, and his experiences in, and memories of, the French town Combray. Inspired by the "gusts of memory" that rise up within him as he dips a Madeleine into hot tea, the narrator discusses his fear of going to bed at night. He is a creature of habit and dislikes waking up in the middle of the night not knowing where he is.He claims that people are defined by the objects that surround them and must piece together their identities bit by bit each time they wake up. The young Marcel is so nervous about sleeping alone that he looks forward to his mother's goodnight kisses, but also dreads them as a sign of an impending sleepless night. One night, when Charles Swann, a friend of his grandparents, is visiting, his mother cannot come kiss him goodnight. He stays up until Swann leaves, and looks so sad and pitiful that even his disciplinarian father encourages "Mamma" to spend the night in Marcel's room.

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption. Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. His life was divided by political duties and poetry, the most of famous of which was inspired by his meeting with Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice,including La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy. He died in Ravenna in 1321.

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

Six months after losing his wife and two young sons, Vermont Professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then one night, he stumbles upon a clip from a lost film by silent comedian Hector Mann. His interest is piqued, and he soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to research a book on this mysterious figure, who vanished from sight back in 1929.When the book is published the following year, a letter turns up in Zimmer’s mailbox bearing a return address from a small town in New Mexico inviting him to meet Hector. Zimmer hesitates, until one night a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever.

This is a story for people who follow their hearts and make their own rules...people who get special pleasure out of doing something well, even if only for themselves...people who know there's more to this living than meets the eye: they’ll be right there with Jonathan, flying higher and faster than ever they dreamed.Jonathan Livingston Seagull is no ordinary bird. He believes it is every gull's right to fly, to reach the ultimate freedom of challenge and discovery, finding his greatest reward in teaching younger gulls the joy of flight and the power of dreams. The special 20th anniversary release of this spiritual classic!

The classic novel, international sensation, and inspiration for the film starring Anthony Quinn explores the struggle between the aesthetic and the rational, the inner life and the life of the mind.The classic novel Zorba the Greek is the story of two men, their incredible friendship, and the importance of living life to the fullest. Zorba, a Greek working man, is a larger-than-life character, energetic and unpredictable. He accompanies the unnamed narrator to Crete to work in the narrator’s lignite mine, and the pair develops a singular relationship. The two men couldn’t be further apart: The narrator is cerebral, modest, and reserved; Zorba is unfettered, spirited, and beyond the reins of civility. Over the course of their journey, he becomes the narrator’s greatest friend and inspiration and helps him to appreciate the joy of living.Zorba has been acclaimed as one of the most remarkable figures in literature; he is a character in the great tradition of Sinbad the Sailor, Falstaff, and Sancho Panza. He responds to all that life offers him with passion, whether he’s supervising laborers at a mine, confronting mad monks in a mountain monastery, embellishing the tales of his past adventures, or making love. Zorba the Greek explores the beauty and pain of existence, inviting readers to reevaluate the most important aspects of their lives and live to the fullest.

On one level, An American Tragedy is the story of the corruption and destruction of one man, Clyde Griffiths, who forfeits his life in desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, the novel represents a massive portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde's tawdry ambitions and seal his fate: It is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American Dream. Extraordinary in scope and power, vivid in its sense of wholesale human waste, unceasing in its rich compassion, An American Tragedy stands as Theodore Dreiser's supreme achievement.Based on an actual crime case, An American Tragedy was the inspiration for the film A Place in the Sun, winner of six Academy Awards, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

Augie comes on stage with one of literature’s most famous opening lines. “I am an American, Chicago born, and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted.” It’s the “Call me Ishmael” of mid-20th-century American fiction. (For the record, Bellow was born in Canada.) Or it would be if Ishmael had been more like Tom Jones with a philosophical disposition. With this teeming book Bellow returned a Dickensian richness to the American novel. As he makes his way to a full brimming consciousness of himself, Augie careens himself through numberless occupations, and countless mentors and exemplars, all the while enchanting us with the slapdash American music of his voice.

In Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s  most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.

T.J., a high school freshman, lost his mother two months before in a car accident: his father pops pills and sits on the couch; his grandmother holds things together, chatting and cooking. T.J. wants the car back from the salvage yard where the owner's son is a bully. By happenstance, Hesher, a foul-mouthed squatter, moves in with T.J's family. T.J. also meets Nicole, a grocery clerk near poverty who helps him once. Hesher involves T.J. in crime, the bully is omnipresent, mom's car is slipping away, dad has checked out, T.J. watches Nicole at work, and his grandma invites him to join her morning walk: the odds are long that T.J. can assemble a family to help him thrive.

Rickey, an energetic and free-spirited young man who convinces Glenn, his long-time friend who's settled into domestic life, to go on an impromptu road trip from Los Angeles to Sacramento.

Why Women Kill details the lives of three women living in three different decades: a housewife in the '60s, a socialite in the '80s, and a lawyer in 2019, each dealing with infidelity in their marriages. The series examines how the roles of women have changed, but how their reaction to betrayal - has not.

American dark comedy-drama web television series

A devoted and mild-mannered British couple become the focus of an extraordinary investigation when two dead bodies are discovered in the back garden of a house in England.

A British politician who faked his own death.

Two people who let a road rage incident burrow into their minds and slowly consume their every thought and action.

Ed Stevens is a contracts lawyer at a high-profile New York City firm. Around the same time he splits with his wife (she slept with a mailman), he makes a single error in punctuation when going over a contract; and because of the resulting financial loss to the firm, he's fired. Despondent, he heads back to his (small) hometown of Stuckeyville, "Anytown", USA. There he realizes he's been missed by a lot of friends whom he's missed; and he sees Carol, the girl he'd adored in high school. Swept up in roiling emotions, Ed buys the local bowling alley on a whim, moves to Stuckeyville, and determines to win Carol's heart. His horizons broaden as he settles once more in Stuckeyville, and the series itself settles into a charming, funny, often serious slice-of-life series focused not solely on Ed, but on the lovable ensemble cast of people who live and work with him in Stuckeyville.

The Roy family is known for controlling the biggest media and entertainment company in the world. However, their world changes when their father steps down from the company.

A grifter named Ripley living in New York during the 1960s is hired by a wealthy man to begin a complex life of deceit, fraud and murder.

A grieving therapist starts to tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge changes to people's lives - including his own.

A convict escapes prison to find the truth about his father's alleged suicide and track down those involved in a major criminal conspiracy.

Con artist Maddie is as beautiful as she is dangerous. Over the years, she has left a trail of unwitting victims who become tormented upon realizing that they have been used and robbed of everything -- including their hearts. Her latest assignment threatens to be derailed, though, when she meets Patrick, a potential love interest. Further complicating Maddie's work are three former targets -- Ezra, Richard and Jules -- who realize they have been scammed by the same woman and team up to track her down. When the victims choose to embark on the quest, they don't realize that they must face their own truths and find new versions of themselves along the way.

A female prison employee in upstate New York becomes romantically involved with a pair of inmates and helps them escape.

Texas in 1980 and based on the true story of killer Candy Montgomery and her victim, Betty Gore. Jessica Biel plays Montgomery, who seemingly had it all - a loving husband with a good job, a daughter and a son, a nice house in the brand new suburbs - so why did she kill her friend from church with an ax?

AMERICAN GOTHIC centers on a prominent Boston family reeling in the wake of the chilling discovery that someone in their midst is linked to an infamous string of murders. As shocking secrets from the past and present are revealed, their mounting suspicion and paranoia that one of them is a killer threatens to tear the family apart.

2016 American mystery drama television series

Each series, a detective focuses on the prime suspect in a murder case; but everyone has something to hide.

2015-2016 American drama television series

Memphis, Tennessee, 1972. Mac Conway and his friend Arthur have just returned home after serving in Vietnam. They reconnect with their families and try to find jobs. However, work is hard to come by for Vietnam vets. Conway gets contacted by a man known simply as The Broker. He recruits hitmen for assignments and believes that Conway would be ideal for this sort of work. Conway is reluctant, but is drawn in once he discovers that Arthur has already accepted a similar offer from The Broker. The Broker gives Conway a code name - Quarry.

When chemistry teacher Walter White is diagnosed with Stage III cancer and given only two years to live, he decides he has nothing to lose. He lives with his teenage son, who has cerebral palsy, and his wife, in New Mexico. Determined to ensure that his family will have a secure future, Walt embarks on a career of drugs and crime. He proves to be remarkably proficient in this new world as he begins manufacturing and selling methamphetamine with one of his former students. The series tracks the impacts of a fatal diagnosis on a regular, hard working man, and explores how a fatal diagnosis affects his morality and transforms him into a major player of the drug trade.

Pietro Poltronieri

OZ chronicles McManus' (Terry Kinney) efforts to control the inmates of Em(erald) City as well as the drug trade and the violence. There have been many groups of inmates during the run of the show and not everybody makes it out alive. There are the gangstas (Adebisi, Wangler, Redding, Poet, Keene, Supreme Allah), Muslims (Said, Arif, Hamid Khan), Italians (Pancamo, Nappa, Schiebetta), bikers (Hoyt), Aryans (Schillinger, Robson, Mark Mack), Christians (Cloutier, Cudney), Latinos (Alvarez, Morales, Guerra, Hernandez), gays (Hanlon, Cramer), and a pile of others (the O'Riley brothers, Keller, Stanislovsky, etc.). And a great "everyman" character called Beecher offers a good look at a normal man who made one tragic mistake. Besides the regular inmates, there are guest stars such as Method Man, Luke Perry, Master P, Treach, etc. and a bunch of prison staff doctors (Dr. Nathan), a nun/psychologist (Sister Peter Marie), a bunch of guards--some honest, some crooked--and, of course, the warden, Leo Glynn. The whole thing is narrated and held together by inmate Augustus Hill, who provides the show with context and some sense of theme, and ties everything together nicely.

People suffer largely unnoticed while the rest of the world goes about its business. This is a documentary exploration of the mythic beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge, the most popular suicide destination in the world, and those drawn by its call. Steel and his crew filmed the bridge during daylight hours from two separate locations for all of 2004, recording most of the two dozen deaths in that year (and preventing several others). They also taped interviews with friends, families and witnesses, who recount in sorrowful detail stories of struggles with depression, substance abuse and mental illness. Raises questions about suicide, mental illness and civic responsibility as well as the filmmaker's relationship to his fraught and complicated material.

A pair of deep-cover Soviet spies masquerades as a typical DC couple whose children, neighbors, coworkers, and friends are completely unaware of their activities. At home, they're the stereotypical parents of stereotypical kids; at work, they pose as travel agents; but at night, they weave a web of confidantes, lovers, dupes, and historical figures from the Reagan-era Cold War. The startlingly realistic plot twists force the viewer to consider the real cost of an undeclared war, what it takes to protect one's beliefs, if it's worth it, and if it actually worked for either side.

2013 American period spy thriller television series

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