Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Auriel W

Blake Molmen

Dani Shahar

Luis Javier Campos nieto

Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico--she'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home, and servants. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.

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  Janie saw her life like a giant tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.\
I've spent many years wanting to read this book, but also not wanting to read it because the title made me think it was going to be heavy on religion, which is something I generally avoid in books. It's not, though. It's a wonderful, lyrical tale of a woman's life and search for independence.Now I'm fascinated by interpretations of the title because religion and God don't feature much in the story at all. I’ve been reading about the idea that the title implies how Janie must look to God - not white people, not husbands, not well-meaning family members - to determine her future. While this theory doesn't give her much agency, it does fit with her search for a life outside of others' expectations (except God's).It's set in Florida in the early 20th Century, at the height of Jim Crow. The novel begins with Janie Crawford sharing her life story with her friend Pheoby. We are taken back to her youth and sexual awakening-- an event that triggers her grandmother's insistence that she marry for protection. Nanny, herself, is fascinating. You feel both Janie's frustration toward her controlling grandmother, and Nanny's desire that Janie will have a better life and be taken care of.\
  "She was borned in slavery time when folks, dat is black folks, didn’t sit down anytime dey felt lak it. So sittin’ on porches lak de white madam look lak uh might fine thing tuh her. Dat’s whut she wanted for me – don’t keer whut it cost. Git up on uh high chair and sit dere. She didn’t have time tuh think whut tuh do after you got up on de stool uh do nothin’."\
As you can see from above, the novel's dialogue makes strong use of dialect and colloquialisms. Through three marriages and many instances of physical abuse, Janie remains fierce and unapologetic. It was a terrible time in America for a black woman to find freedom and independence, but Janie pursues it nevertheless. It's now eighty years after the book's first publication and Janie's indistinguishable spirit is as captivating as it surely always was.In the end, the book is about defying expectations and living for oneself. Everyone in Janie's life wants and expects something from her. Her Nanny wants her to marry for protection, white men want to keep her down, darker-skinned African-Americans feel she should emphasize her lighter skin, each of her husbands wants her to behave and dress in a way that suits them. But Janie remains wholly herself throughout. I love her.Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube

Sylvia Plath's shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman falling into the grip of insanity. Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.

The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.Librarian note: This record is for one of the three editions published with different covers and with ISBN 0-140-38572-X / 978-0-14-038572-4. The records are for the 1988 cover (this record), the 1995 cover, and the 2008 cover which is also the current in-print cover.

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0307269752 (ISBN13: 9780307269751)

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

The short story, Franny, takes place in an unnamed college town and tells the tale of an undergraduate who is becoming disenchanted with the selfishness and inauthenticity she perceives all around her.The novella, Zooey, is named for Zooey Glass, the second-youngest member of the Glass family. As his younger sister, Franny, suffers a spiritual and existential breakdown in her parents' Manhattan living room -- leaving Bessie, her mother, deeply concerned -- Zooey comes to her aid, offering what he thinks is brotherly love, understanding, and words of sage advice.Salinger writes of these works: "FRANNY came out in The New Yorker in 1955, and was swiftly followed, in 1957 by ZOOEY. Both stories are early, critical entries in a narrative series I'm doing about a family of settlers in twentieth-century New York, the Glasses. It is a long-term project, patently an ambiguous one, and there is a real-enough danger, I suppose that sooner or later I'll bog down, perhaps disappear entirely, in my own methods, locutions, and mannerisms. On the whole, though, I'm very hopeful. I love working on these Glass stories, I've been waiting for them most of my life, and I think I have fairly decent, monomaniacal plans to finish them with due care and all-available skill."

You've lost your job as a department store lingerie buyer, your car's been repossessed, and most of your furniture and small appliances have been sold off to pay last month's rent. Now the rent is due again. And you live in New Jersey. What do you do?If you're Stephanie Plum, you become a bounty hunter. But not just a nickel-and-dime bounty hunter; you go after the big money. That means a cop gone bad. And not just any cop. She goes after Joe Morelli, a disgraced former vice cop who is also the man who took Stephanie's virginity at age 16 and then wrote details on a bathroom wall. With pride and rent money on the line, Plum plunges headlong into her first case, one that pits her against ruthless adversaries - people who'd rather kill than lose.In Stephanie Plum, Evanovich has created a resourceful and humorous character who stands apart from the pack of gritty female detectives.

Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani), in the middle of becoming a budding stand-up comedian, meets Emily (Zoe Kazan). Meanwhile, a sudden illness sets in forcing Emily to be put into a medically-induced coma. Kumail must navigate being a comedian, dealing with tragic illness, and placating his family's desire to let them fix him up with a spouse, while contemplating and figuring out who he really is and what he truly believes.

Comedian Dave Chappelle hosts this sketch-comedy show that parodies many of the nuances of race and culture.

Comedian George Lopez stars as a Los Angeles manufacturing plant manager attempting to deal with his wacky family along with other random mishaps.

Reba McEntire stars as the titular character in this smash sitcom about a single mom of three, navigating life in a Houston suburb. Between co-parenting with hilarious dentist ex-husband Brock and his dotty new wife Barbra Jean (his dental hygienist) to helping her three wise-cracking, dynamic kids navigate their new life, Reba has her hands full. Reba is the perfect mix of Southern sweet and sass.

"Roseanne" is the story of a working-class family struggling with life's essential problems - marriage, children, money, and parents-in-law. A now-classic sitcom, the story circles around the Connor family, a family of five that includes the parents, Roseanne (Roseanne Barr) and Dan (John Goodman), and the children, Becky (Alicia Goranson), Darlene (Sara Gilbert), and D.J. (Michael Fishman). Roseanne is helped in her challenge to keep the family moving along by her single sister, Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), and various friends.

The Golden Girls is based on the lives and interactions of four older women who have all been divorced/widowed, and are now roommates. Dorothy's main goal during the series is to find a companion she can relate to while her mother Sophia adds her comical outlook and frequent "Picture This" stories. Rose's St. Olaf-ness makes her a little corny but lovable. One thing that changes nearly every episode is whom Blanche is courting.

Meet Bill and Judy Miller, a toilet salesman and a dental assistant: two high-school lovers who turned in their wild lifestyle to get married years ago. Now, as they creep toward middle age, they're dealing with more "everyday" things, such as their three kids: their intelligent and (to Bill's horror) still sexually-unsure son Brian; their typical drama-queen daughter Lauren; and their smug, sarcastic six-year-old, Tina. With Judy's desperate man-hunting sister Linda, Bill's interfering mother Louise, a lesbian couple as next-door neighbors, and other crazy characters around, it's no wonder that Bill and Judy constantly get into strange, hilarious misadventures as they try to prove that they're not too old to have fun. Along the way, they always end up showing that they still love each other, no matter what.

Teenager Travis may live in Florida's leisurely Cougar Town, it's not easy being the son of his divorced parents: over-protective Jules and lazybones Bobby. Jules obsessively draws attention, wins sympathy and 'benignly' bosses everyone around. That includes her real estate office deputy Laurie, neighbor Ellie- who rules her devoted Cuban husband Andy Torres with iron hand- and in various modes hunky new neighbor and barman Grayson, all forming a quarrelsome gang.

Following a woman named Frankie, and her boisterous family, the Hecks. Her husband, Mike, her daughter, Sue, and her two sons, Axl, and Brick go on what you might call family adventures as they explore life and its meaning. Mike and Frankie Heck watch their three crazy children grow up into young adults.

American sitcom television series (2009-2018)

It's the 1980s and at McKinley High, there's two different groups of teenagers, the Freaks with cool and charismatic Daniel Desario and tomboy Lindsay Weir and the Geeks with Lindsay's shy younger brother Sam, gentle Bill Haverchuck, and self-proclaimed ladies' man Neal Schweiber. The show chronicles the normal teen/adolescence problems any teenager goes through including acceptance, drugs, drinking, and bullying.

American teen comedy-drama television series

After a Jewish, high-voiced, woman from Flushing, New York gets fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend, Fran Fine (Fran Drescher) is mistaken as applying for a nanny for widowed Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy), who has three children, Maggie (Nicholle Tom), Brighton (Benjamin Salisbury), and Grace (Madeline Zima), when she is stuck selling cosmetics in Manhattan. As she spends years there, she becomes great friends with the butler, Niles (Daniel Davis), and the three kids. She is good friends with the widowed man, and some romance sparks through the years.

Gay lawyer Will Truman (Eric McCormack) and straight interior designer Grace Adler (Debra Messing) are best friends living in New York City. Grace is engaged to a real jerk until the relationship falls apart and she moves in with Will. It's supposed to be temporary, until Grace finds her own place, but more and more it looks like a permanent arrangement. Grace's secretary and assistant is fun-loving wealthy socialite Karen Walker (Megan Mullally); Jack McFarland (Sean Hayes) is Will's flamboyant gay friend.

Ally McBeal and Billy Thomas were going steady throughout their childhoods. Ally even followed Billy to Harvard law school despite having no interest in law. But when Billy chose to pursue a career in law away from Ally, their relationship came to an end. In the present, an old classmate of Ally's named Richard Fish gives Ally a job at his law firm, where Billy and his new wife are also working. This puts Ally in a predicament since she still has feelings for Billy which she's laboring to get over. At the office, Ally puts up with a nosy, gossiping secretary named Elaine, and an oddball lawyer named John Cage never seems to lose a case. At home, Ally's friend and house-mate Renée regularly advises her on her love life. The series follows Ally's trials and tribulations in life through her eyes, and caricaturizes her personal thoughts and fantasies.

American legal comedy-drama television series

A New York City homicide Detective cracks case after case while raising wild twin boys and locking horns with her less than helpful Police Detective ex-husband.

American crime television series (2014–2016)

A raucous comedy about six dysfunctional thirty-something friends living in Chicago: shop owner Alex and her ex-fiance, Dave, who runs a food truck; crazy-in-love husband and wife duo Brad and Jane; Max, their perpetually unemployed friend, and singleton Penny, always in pursuit of the right guy.

2011-2013 American sitcom television series

A group of actors move to Los Angeles to make it big, but end up working as caterers.

In an amoral science-based company, a manager tries to keep control of his scientists while being pressured by his shrewd boss.

Bradin, Nikki, and Derrick are three kids from an average Kansas household. Their whole life turns upside-down when their parents are tragically killed in a car accident. Their aunt Ava Gregory gets custody of them and they move into her Summerland, California home. Ava, a struggling clothing designer, lives with her best friend/business partner Susannah Rexford, her Ava Gregory (their aunt) gets custody of her niece and nephews and they move into her Californian home (in Summerland). Ava, a struggling clothes designer, lives with her best friend and business partner Susannah Rexford, her ex-pro surfer friend Jay Robertson, and her ex-boyfriend, real-estate agent Johnny Durrant. All four of them are highly unequipped to handle children and unused to including them in their everyday lives. The series follows each of their struggles through life. Ava is trying to get her fashion line to take off and fighting feeling for her childhood sweetheart Johnny--and now she's trying to bring up her sister's children as well as possible. Johnny is forever trying to fight his feelings for Ava, knowing he ruined that relationship long ago. Johnny is the father figure to the children. Jay owns a surf shop and is trying to win back ex-girlfriend Erica Spaulding. He acts as the cool big brother to the 3 children and he and Bradin develop a close relationship. Bradin is growing up and getting led astray very easily in the teenage world. He drinks, takes drugs, and gets arrested after getting involved with 'bad-apple' Sara, who he then helps to get her life back on track. Later he falls in love with Callie, only to get hurt again. He discovers a passion for surfing and becomes very good--and falls for his coach, Erica Spaulding. Nikki is at an awkward age of 13 and trying to fit into the Californian teenage world. She is very bright and enjoys reading books and writing poetry more than hanging out at the mall and shopping for clothes. Early on Nikki meets Cameron Bale and they develop a strong relationship and ultimately fall in love. Derrick takes to Johnny immediately and the two develop a good friendship, he also finds his "one soul mate" in a little girl named Martha. This is basically a fun show of sun, sea, and sand mixed with great storyline and emotional input, and will leave you wanting more. Great cast, excellent chemistry, and beautiful scenery.

A Yale-educated journalism major reluctantly becomes a live-in tutor for two spoiled granddaughters of a Palm Beach cosmetics business magnate.

Elizabeth "Liz" Lemon (Tina Fey) is the executive show runner for a late night sketch comedy show called "The Girlie Show", that stars her close friend and major drama queen Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski). When GE hires a new Executive Vice President for NBC named Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), he decides to take Liz Lemon under his wing and turn around TGS, which for years has been unable to find the proper audience it deserves. So to do so, he brings on unhinged, wildly unpredictable star Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) to turn the series into a ratings hit. But Liz soon finds out that controlling her oddball writing staff, the NBC page program, keeping Tracy on a short leash, and getting him to get along with Jenna proves to be one disaster after another. Will TGS ever see true success? And will Liz find the right partner to get married and start a family?

A single-camera comedy featuring three friends who work together as telemarketers from 9 to 5, and live together from 5 to 9.

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