Edgar Colt

Vitor Miguel

Prisma Soulstorm

Serena

Jordan

Bruna Guedes

Husain Kothari

FRNK

Uendi Prifti

Abdul Hasib

Loughlin Sullivan

Delaney Knopp

Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here"A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs."Meet Ignatius J. Reilly, the hero of John Kennedy Toole's tragicomic tale, A Confederacy of Dunces. This 30-year-old medievalist lives at home with his mother in New Orleans, pens his magnum opus on Big Chief writing pads he keeps hidden under his bed, and relays to anyone who will listen the traumatic experience he once had on a Greyhound Scenicruiser bound for Baton Rouge. ("Speeding along in that bus was like hurtling into the abyss.") But Ignatius's quiet life of tyrannizing his mother and writing his endless comparative history screeches to a halt when he is almost arrested by the overeager Patrolman Mancuso--who mistakes him for a vagrant--and then involved in a car accident with his tipsy mother behind the wheel. One thing leads to another, and before he knows it, Ignatius is out pounding the pavement in search of a job.Over the next several hundred pages, our hero stumbles from one adventure to the next. His stint as a hotdog vendor is less than successful, and he soon turns his employers at the Levy Pants Company on their heads. Ignatius's path through the working world is populated by marvelous secondary characters: the stripper Darlene and her talented cockatoo; the septuagenarian secretary Miss Trixie, whose desperate attempts to retire are constantly, comically thwarted; gay blade Dorian Greene; sinister Miss Lee, proprietor of the Night of Joy nightclub; and Myrna Minkoff, the girl Ignatius loves to hate. The many subplots that weave through A Confederacy of Dunces are as complicated as anything you'll find in a Dickens novel, and just as beautifully tied together in the end. But it is Ignatius--selfish, domineering, and deluded, tragic and comic and larger than life--who carries the story. He is a modern-day Quixote beset by giants of the modern age. His fragility cracks the shell of comic bluster, revealing a deep streak of melancholy beneath the antic humor. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide in 1969 and never saw the publication of his novel. Ignatius Reilly is what he left behind, a fitting memorial to a talented and tormented life.

When Jack Kerouac’s On the Road first appeared in 1957, readers instantly felt the beat of a new literary rhythm. A fictionalised account of his own journeys across America with his friend Neal Cassady, Kerouac’s beatnik odyssey captured the soul of a generation and changed the landscape of American fiction for ever.Influenced by Jack London and Thomas Wolfe, Kerouac always wanted to be a writer, but his true voice only emerged when he wrote about his own experiences in On the Road. Leaving a broken marriage behind him, Sal Paradise (Kerouac) joins Dean Moriarty (Cassady), a tearaway and former reform school boy, on a series of journeys that takes them from New York to San Francisco, then south to Mexico. Hitching rides and boarding buses, they enter a world of hobos and drifters, fruit-pickers and migrant families, small towns and wide horizons. Adrift from conventional society, they experience America in the raw: a place where living is hard, but ‘life is holy and every moment is precious’.With its smoky, jazz-filled atmosphere and its restless, yearning spirit of adventure, On the Road left its mark on the culture of the late 20th century, influencing countless books, films and songs. Kerouac’s prose is remarkable both for its colloquial swing and for the pure lyricism inspired by the American landscape – ‘the backroads, the black-tar roads that curve among the mournful rivers like Susquehanna, Monongahela, old Potomac and Monocacy’. This Folio Society edition is illustrated with evocative photographs of Kerouac and the landscapes of 1950s America. Now acknowledged as a modern classic, On the Road remains a thrilling and poignant story of the road less travelled.

No play in the modern theatre has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. As Williams's first popular success, it launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career, of our pre-eminent lyric playwright. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, Menagaerie has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world. The Glass Menagerie (in the reading text the author preferred) is now available only in its New Directions Paperbook edition. A new introduction by the editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, Robert Bray, reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. This edition of The Glass Menagerie also includes Williams's essay on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, "The Catastrophe of Success," as well as a short section of Williams's own "Production Notes." (back cover)

I was five and a half years old when my mother gave me The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as a New Year's gift (she is a literature teacher, and I have been reading novels since the tender age of four or so, and so it seemed appropriate).Being a diligent and serious¹ child (neither of those qualities have stuck with me, unfortunately), I opened it to page 1 and started reading. I even took it with me to kindergarten, where other kids were learning letters and I was mercifully allowed to read hefty tomes, having obviously achieved full literacy by that point.¹ \
Me (age 5) and Mom. The diligent seriousness is *all over* this picture. This book initially left me quite confused, but I was undeterred - after all, the world was a confusing place, full of adults and rules and great books - even those without pictures. (And I was very proud to own books without pictures, after all). But his one was just too strange - its beginning did not quite fit with the rest of the quite fun story - it was odd and dry and incomprehensible for the first 40 pages or so, and it even was about some other guy (Samuel Clemens?) who was not Tom Sawyer.A few years later I reread my early childhood favorite (I probably reached a ripe old age of eight or so, still diligent but a bit less serious already). It was then that I figured out what seemed strange about the beginning of this book when I was five.You see, I diligently slogged my way through the most boring academic foreword, assuming that was the first chapter. What amazes me that I managed to stay awake through it. Good job, five-year-old me! Excellent preparation for that painfully boring biochemistry course a couple of decades later!After that foreword, slogging through any classic was a comparative breeze. Yes, I'm looking at you, War and Peace! You know what you did, you endless tome.Also, as it turns out, when you include two characters named Joe in one book (Injun Joe and Tom's classmate Joe Harper) that can cause a certain amount of confusion to a five-year-old who assumes they have to be the same person and struggles really hard to reconcile their seemingly conflicting characters. And, as a side note, I have always been disappointed at Tom Sawyer tricking his friends to do the infamous fence whitewashing. A *real* kid knows after all that painting stuff is fun. Five-year-old me was a bit disapproving of the silliness. I have told bits and pieces of this book to my friends on the playground, while dangling from the monkey bars or building sandcastles (in a sandbox, that in retrospect I suspect was used by the neighborhood stray cats as a litterbox - but I guess you have to develop immunity to germs somehow). We may have planned an escape to an island in a true Tom Sawyer fashion, but the idea fizzled. After all, we did not have an island nearby, which was a problem. Also, we may have got distracted by the afternoon cartoons.Someday, I just may have to leave this book within a reach of my future hypothetical daughter - as long as I make sure it does not come with a long-winded boring introduction.

Στα 1816 ο δεκαεπτάχρονος Balzac μπήκε ως μαθητευόμενος στο δικηγορικό γραφείο του κυρίου Guyonnet de Merville, που υπήρξε ένας τίμιος και ακέραιος άνθρωπος και που, χωρίς να το επιδιώξει, αποτέλεσε πηγή εμπνευσης τόσο για τον θεατρικό συγγραφέα Eugène Scribe, (τον εβαλε να πρωταγωνιστεί στο έργο του Τα ενδοτερα του δικηγορικού γραφείου ή Ο ανακριτής και ο δικηγόρος με το όνομα Derville) όσο και για τον ίδιο τον Balzac, οποίος διατήρησε το ίδιο επινοημένο όνομα. 'Ετσι εδώ, σε ετούτη τη νουβέλα, με τίτλο Gobseck, είναι ο δικηγόρος Derville που αφηγείται την ιστορία του ιδιόρρυθμου, μισανθρώπου τοκογλύφου που δίνει το όνομα του στον τίτλο. Μέσα από διαδοχικές επεξεργασίες, το έργο, δημοσιεύτηκε αρχικά με τον τίτλο L'Usurier στο περιοδικο La Mode στα 1830 μετα στην συλλογή Scènes de la vie privée. Tome 1 par M. de Balzac στα 1832 με τον τίτλο Les Dangers de l'inconduite κι αργότερα, στα 1835 ο τίτλος μεταλλάχθηκε σε Papa Gobseck και τελικά πήρε την τελική του μορφή, Gobseck, στα 1842. Ανάμεσα στην έκδοση του 1832 και την τελική, όπου μπόρεσα να συγκρίνω, υπάρχουν μεγάλες διαφορές. Η κόμισσα de Grandlieu και η κόρη της, η Camille, καθώς και ο Ernest de Restaud και φυσικά ο ίδιος Gobseck παραμένουν ως έχουν, ωστόσο ο Derville παρουσιάζεται απλώς ως ο L'avoué (ο δικηγόρος), η κόμισσα Anastasie de Restaud (κόρη του Goriot και ερωμένη του Maxime de Trailles) αναφέρεται ως Emilie και ο εραστής της παραμένει ανώνυμος, και δεν υπάρχει καμία αναφορά στην la Torpille η οποία στο μεταγενέστερο κείμενο θα παρουσιαστεί ως κόρη της ανιψιάς του Gobseck. Η τελευταία σκηνή στο δωμάτιο του ήρωα παραλείπεται (και είναι μία σκηνή μεγαλειώδης μέσα στην ολοκληρωτική φρίκη της) και αρχικά το έργο κλείνει με μια αινιγματική φράση του γέρου τοκογλύφου, που εκφράζει τον κυνισμό του. Όπως και να έχει ο κεντρικός χαρακτήρας του τοκογλύφου κατάφερε να ασκήσει επάνω μου μια νοσηρή γοητεία. Ο Jean-Esther van Gobseck ή papa Gobseck, όπως τον φωνάζουν όλοι, διαθέτει μια ιδιόρρυθμη και αξιοπερίεργη προσωπικότητα. Λίγα πράγματα είναι γνωστά από το σκοτεινό παρελθόν του. Αλλά κυρίως είναι η κοσμοθεωρία του που συμβάλλει στην ιδιαιτερότητα του χαρακτήρα του. Γεννημένος στα 1740 είναι ήδη 76 ετών όταν γνωρίζεται με τον νεαρό δικηγόρο: "Το πρόσωπό του έμοιαζε με θαμπό ασήμι. Είχε γκρίζα μαλλιά, στιλπνά και καλοχτενισμένα. Τα χαρακτηριστικά του έμοιαζαν με μπρούντζινο εκμαγείο. Ακόμα κι ίδιος ο Ταλεϋράνδος έδειχνε λιγότερο απαθής από αυτόν εδώ τον δανειστή. Ένα ζευγάρι κίτρινα μάτια, κίτρινα σαν της νυφίτσας, χωρίς βλεφαρίδες, πρόβαλλαν μέσα από μια παλιομοδίτικη, φθαρμένη σκούφια, σαν να φοβούνταν το φως. Είχε τα λεπτά χείλη που βλέπει κάποιος στους πίνακες του Rembrandt και του Metsu, όποτε εκείνοι ζωγράφιζαν αλχημιστές ή ηλικιωμένους άνδρες, και μια μύτη τόσο σουβλερή που θύμιζε τρυπάνι. Η φωνή του ήταν εξαιρετικά χαμηλή. Πάντα μιλούσε με γλυκύτητα. Ποτέ δεν ανέβαζε τους τόνους. Η ηλικία του ήταν ένα μυστήριο. Κανείς δεν μπορούσε να πει αν είχε γεράσει πριν την ώρα του ή, κάνοντας οικονομία στη νιότη, είχε αρκετή για να του φτάσει για μια ολάκερη ζωή". Νόθο παιδί ενός Ολλανδού και μιας Εβραίας από τις Κάτω Χώρες μπάρκαρε ως καμαρότος σε ένα εμπορικό πλοίο για τις Ανατολικές Ινδίες, κι εκεί έζησε για περίπου είκοσι χρόνια. Ασχολήθηκε ανάμεσα σε άλλα με την πειρατεία, κατέληξε ως χρυσοθήρας στην Νότια Αμερική και αναμείχθηκε ως κατάσκοπος στον Πόλεμο της Αμερικάνικης Ανεξαρτησίας. Καταλήγει ως τοκογλύφος στο Παρίσι. Ζει μια ζωή μέσα σε μια φαινομενική στέρηση, ωστόσο όταν γνωρίζει αρκετά καλά τον νεαρό δικηγόρο ώστε να τον εμπιστευτεί (με το αζημίωτο) του αποκαλύπτει:"Τίποτα δεν μένει κρυμμένο από εμένα. Κανένας δεν αρνείται το παραμικρό σε εκείνον που κατέχει τα σχοινιά του πουγκιού και μπορεί να τα ανοίγει ή να τα σφίγγει κατά το κέφι του. Είμαι τόσο πλούσιος που μπορώ να εξαγοράσω τις συνειδήσεις των υπουργών, χρησιμοποιώντας τους υπαλλήλους ή τις ερωμένες τους. Δεν είναι λοιπόν αυτό από μόνο του Εξουσία; Μπορώ να έχω τις ωραιότερες γυναίκες, να δεχτώ τα απαλότερα χάδια. Δεν είναι αυτό Ηδονή; Και μήπως ολάκερη η κοινωνική οικονομία της εποχής μας δεν στηρίζεται επάνω σε αυτές ακριβώς τις δύο αξίες της Εξουσίας και της Ηδονής; Υπάρχουν συνολικά δέκα άνθρωποι στο Παρίσι μαζί με εμένα, σιωπηλοί και άγνωστοι βασιλιάδες που ορίζουμε τα πεπρωμένα σας. Τί είναι η ζωή πέρα από μια μηχανή που κινείται με τη δύναμη του χρήματος; Να το θυμάσαι καλά αυτό, μην συγχέεις τα μέσα με τα αποτελέσματα. Η ψυχή δεν μπορεί να διαχωριστεί από τις αισθήσεις και το πνεύμα από την ύλη. Ο Χρυσός είναι η πνευματική βάση της σημερινής κοινωνίας. Εμάς τους δέκα μας ενώνει το κοινό συμφέρον". Η ανατροπή και το ενδιαφέρον σε αυτήν την υπόθεση είναι πως ενώ κάποιος, μέσα από όλα αυτά, θα υπέθετε πως ο Gobseck είναι ο κακός της υπόθεσης, στην πραγματικότητα δεν είναι. Καθώς ο νεαρός δικηγόρος δένεται ολοένα και περισσότερο μαζί του, φτάνει να δει μέσα στη ψυχή του κάποιες ποιότητες που δεν διακρίνονται εκ πρώτης όψεως, κάποια χαρακτηριστικά που μένουν καλά κρυμμένα κάτω από το απαθές προσωπείο. Είναι μισάνθρωπος αλλά πάνω από όλα είναι ένας φιλόσοφος. Ένας φιλοσοφος της ανθρώπινης ύπαρξης που εξασκεί τα δόγματά του επάνω στους άλλους. Δεν τρέφεται από τις ανθρώπινες αδυναμίες αλλά τις διαχειρίζεται για το όφελός του, επειδή γνωρίζει τον τρόπο. Στην ουσία όσοι έρχονται σε αυτόν χωρίζονται σε δύο κατηγορίες. Σε αυτούς που είναι ήδη από χέρι χαμένοι, οπότε η παρέμβασή του δεν συμβάλλει περισσότερο στην ήδη προδιαγεγραμμένη καταστροφική τους πορεία, και σε αυτούς που έχουν ταλέντα και όρεξη για δουλειά αλλά τους λείπει το κεφάλαιο. Αυτοί οι δεύτεροι... δεν κινδυνεύουν από τον Gobseck. Δεν θα τους χαρίσει τίποτα. Θα πάρει πίσω ό,τι του αναλογεί με τόκο. Αλλά δεν θα τους καταπιεί. Για τους δεύτερους λειτουργεί απλώς ως ανεπίσημος τραπεζίτης και επενδύει στην εργατικότητα και στις ικανότητές τους. Οπότε όλοι βγαίνουν κερδισμένοι;Ένα υπέροχο έργο και ειδικά εκείνη η τελευταία σκηνή με στοίχειωσε. Η αμύθητη περιουσία του γέρου τοκογλύφου, η μανία του να συσσωρεύει, να κατέχει, είναι από μόνη της μια μορφή τρέλας η οποία ωστόσο έχει τη δική της λογική. Όλα τα αγαθά που μαζεύει δεν τα απολαμβάνει σε επίπεδο υλικό, δεν καταναλώνει, τα αποθηκεύει και τα διακινεί με σκοπό πάντα το κέρδος. Απώτερος σκόπος η εξουσία, να ελέγχει τις ζωές των άλλων, να τιμωρεί και να δικαιώνει σαν μικρός θεός. Να λοιπόν πώς ο Balzac κάνει το πορτραίτο των θεών της σύχρονης εποχής: Οι κεφαλαιούχοι, οι καπιταλιστές. Ακόμα κι όταν κανένας δεν τους γνωρίζει, δεν παύει να είναι αυτοί που ελέγχουν την καθημερινότητα του βίου μας. Όλοι κρεμόμαστε από τα σχοινιά του πουγκιού του Gobseck.Γι' αυτό μου αρέσει και απολαμβάνω να διαβάζω ρεαλιστική λογοτεχνία. Ακόμα κι αν ήταν δυνατό να αλλάξουμε αυτόν τον κόσμο, αυτό δεν θα μπορούσε να πραγματοποιηθεί, εαν πρώτα δεν προβαίναμε στην κατανόησή του. Και είναι φοβερός ο τρόπος που οι ρεαλιστές λογοτέχνες φωτίζουν ακόμα και τις πιο σκιώδεις και άγνωστες πλευρές της ανθρώπινης πραγματικότητας.

The summer of '28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of half-burnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grandma's belly-busting dinner. It was a summer of sorrows and marvels and gold-fuzzed bees. A magical, timeless summer in the life of a twelve-year-old boy named Douglas Spaulding—remembered forever by the incomparable Ray Bradbury.Woven into the novel are the following short stories: Illumination, Dandelion Wine, Summer in the Air, Season of Sitting, The Happiness Machine, The Night, The Lawns of Summer, Season of Disbelief, The Last--the Very Last, The Green Machine, The Trolley, Statues, The Window, The Swan, The Whole Town's Sleeping, Goodbye Grandma, The Tarot Witch, Hotter Than Summer, Dinner at Dawn, The Magical Kitchen, Green Wine for Dreaming.

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is heartbroken, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs—yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

Kahlil Gibran, author of "The Prophet" and many other famous works, is known throughout the world as the Immortal Prophet of Lebanon and the Savant of His Age.This new, enlarged volume contains much of Gibran's magnificent poetry and various prose pieces which he wrote when scarcely twenty years old. Translated superbly into English from his beloved mother tongue, Arabic, these timeless writings reveal his remarkably mature grasp of a subject which has challenged philosophers throughout history until today - man's destiny and the meaning of his existence.In this volume also is Gibran's heralded story, "The Bride's Bed", a strange, gripping tale that is both a plea for individual liberty and an expression of his bitter condemnation of pre-arranged marriages of children by their parents. It is widely recognized that Gibran, through the razor-sharp attacks in this story and others like it, was responsible in great part for many social, political and religious reforms throughout the East.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's THE SCARLET LETTER reaches to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth.With THE SCARLET LETTER, Hawthorne became the first American novelist to forge from our Puritan heritage a universal classic, a masterful exploration of humanity's unending struggle with sin, guilt and pride.

The story of a wealthy, fiftyish American widow, recently a famous stage beauty, but now "drifting." The novel opens soon after her husband's death and her retirement from the theatre, as Mrs. Stone tries to adjust to her aimless new life in Rome. She is adjusting, too, to aging ("The knowledge that her beauty was lost had come upon her recently and it was still occasionally forgotten.") With poignant wit and his own particular brand of relish, Williams charts her drift into an affair with a cruel young gigolo: "As compelling, as fascinating, and as technically skilled as his plays." (Publishers Weekly)

First published in 1922, The Beautiful and the Damned followed Fitzgerald's impeccable debut, This Side of Paradise, thus securing his place in the tradition of great American novelists. Embellished with the author's lyrical prose, here is the story of Harvard-educated, aspiring aesthete Anthony Patch and his beautiful wife, Gloria. As they await the inheritance of his grandfather's fortune, their reckless marriage sways under the influence of alcohol and avarice. A devastating look at the nouveau riche, and the New York nightlife, as well as the ruinous effects of wild ambition, The Beautiful and the Damned achieved stature as one of Fitzgerald's most accomplished novels. Its distinction as a classic endures to this day. Pocket Book's Enriched Classics present the great works of world literature enhanced for the contemporary reader. Special features include critical perspectives, suggestions for further read, and a unique visual essay composed of period photographs that help bring every word to life.

A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, Play It as It Lays captures the mood of an entire generation, the ennui of contemporary society reflected in spare prose that blisters and haunts the reader. Set in a place beyond good and evil - literally in Hollywood, Las Vegas, and the barren wastes of the Mojave Desert, but figuratively in the landscape of an arid soul - it remains more than three decades after its original publication a profoundly disturbing novel, riveting in its exploration of a woman and a society in crisis and stunning in the still-startling intensity of its prose.

The classic novel of despair, forbidden emotions, and sexual undercurrents set against the austere New England countrysideEthan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a hired girl, Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.In one of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio toward their tragic destinies. Different in both tone and theme from Wharton's other works, Ethan Frome has become perhaps her most enduring and most widely read book.--back cover

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semi-autobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the Jazz Age, based on Fitzgerald's original manuscript. In this definitive text, This Side of Paradise captures the rhythms and romance of Fitzgerald's youth and offers a poignant portrait of the "Lost Generation."

It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth -- and ultimately her life.\
  Read her diary. Enter her world. You will never forget her.\


After his death sometime in his 43rd year, suburbanite Lester Burnham tells of the last few weeks of his life, during which he had no idea of his imminent passing. He is a husband to real estate agent Carolyn Burnham and father to high school student Jane Burnham. Although Lester and Carolyn once loved each other, they now merely tolerate each other. Typical wallflower Jane also hates both her parents; the three suffer individually in silence in their home life. Jane tries to steer clear of both her parents. Carolyn, relatively new to the real estate business, wants to create the persona of success to further her career, aspiring to the professional life of Buddy Kane, the king of the real estate business in their neighborhood. Lester merely walks mindlessly through life, including at his job in advertising. His company is downsizing, and he, like all the other employees, has to justify his position to the newly hired efficiency expert to keep his job. Things change for Lester when he falls in love at first sight with Jane's more experienced classmate, Angela Hayes. Both Janie and Angela can see Lester's sexual infatuation with Angela, who courts such attention from any man as a sign that she is model material, she having once appeared in Seventeen and is a career to which she aspires. Lester's infatuation with Angela gives him a reenergized view on life, where he openly doesn't care anymore what anyone thinks about what he does, anyone except Angela. This infatuation coincides with the Fittses moving in next door: homophobic disciplinarian US Marine Colonel Frank Fitts who rules the house with a military fist (that fist being both figurative and literal), his semi-comatose wife Barbara Fitts, and their bright and quietly subversive 18-year-old son Ricky Fitts, who openly abides by his father's rules while behind the scenes lives by his own quite different perspective. Much like Lester's infatuation, Ricky immediately becomes infatuated with Jane; he considers girls like Angela as ordinary. The entry of Angela and the Fittses into the Burnhams' lives ultimately leads to each of the players confronting what is truly in his or her heart.

The lead character, called 'The Bride,' was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, led by her lover 'Bill.' Upon realizing she was pregnant with Bill's child, 'The Bride' decided to escape her life as a killer. She fled to Texas, met a young man, who, on the day of their wedding rehearsal was gunned down by an angry and jealous Bill (with the assistance of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad). Four years later, 'The Bride' wakes from a coma, and discovers her baby is gone. She, then, decides to seek revenge upon the five people who destroyed her life and killed her baby. The saga of Kill Bill Volume I begins.

Elderly and a virtual prisoner in her own home due to her concerned staff and daughter Carol,

The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's

Humbert Humbert forces a confrontation with a man, whose name he has just recently learned, in this man's home. The events that led to this standoff began four years earlier. Middle aged Humbert, a European, arrives in the United States where he has secured at job at Beardsley College in Beardsley, Ohio as a Professor of French Literature. Before he begins his post in the fall, he decides to spend the summer in the resort town of Ramsdale, New Hampshire. He is given the name of Charlotte Haze as someone who is renting a room in her home for the summer. He finds that Charlotte, widowed now for seven years, is a woman who puts on airs. Among the demonstration of those airs is throwing around the name of Clare Quilty, a television and stage script writer, who came to speak at her women's club meeting and who she implies is now a friend. Those airs also mask being lonely, especially as she is a sexually aggressive and liberated woman. Humbert considers Charlotte a proverbial "joke" but decides to rent the room upon meeting Charlotte's provocative daughter, Dolores Haze - more frequently referred to as Lolita - who he first spots in a bikini tanning in the back yard. He is immediately infatuated with Lolita, with who he becomes obsessed in a sexual manner despite her age, she being just into her teens. He will also learn that Charlotte has the exact same feelings for him. While Charlotte does whatever she can to be alone with Humbert, Humbert does the same with Lolita. As the summer progresses, Humbert, based on the circumstances, decides to enter into a relationship with Charlotte just to be near Lolita. In that new arrangement, Humbert has to figure out how to achieve his goal of being with Lolita with Charlotte out of the way. As things begin to go Humbert's way, he is unaware that Charlotte is not the only thing standing in his way between him and Lolita, that other thing being Lolita's possible interest in other boys, and other members of the male sex, young or old, who may have their own designs on Lolita.

Britain's Prince Albert (Colin Firth) must ascend the throne as

Nineteen year old Andrew Niemann wants to be the greatest jazz drummer in the world, in a league with

Scarlett is a woman who can deal with a nation at war, Atlanta burning, the Union Army carrying off everything from her beloved Tara, the carpetbaggers who arrive after the war. Scarlett is beautiful. She has vitality. But Ashley, the man she has wanted for so long, is going to marry his placid cousin, Melanie. Mammy warns Scarlett to behave herself at the party at Twelve Oaks. There is a new man there that day, the day the Civil War begins. Rhett Butler. Scarlett does not know he is in the room when she pleads with Ashley to choose her instead of Melanie.

1927 Hollywood. Monumental Pictures' biggest stars, glamorous on-screen couple Lina Lamont and Don Lockwood, are also an off-screen couple if the trade papers and gossip columns are to be believed. Both perpetuate the public perception if only to please their adoring fans and bring people into the movie theaters. In reality, Don barely tolerates her, while Lina, despite thinking Don beneath her, simplemindedly believes what she sees on screen in order to bolster her own stardom and sense of self-importance. R.F. Simpson, Monumental's head, dismisses what he thinks is a flash in the pan: talking pictures. It isn't until

1952 film directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen

This movie recounts the adventures of M. Gustave (Ralph Fiennes), a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune - all against the backdrop of a suddenly and dramatically changing continent.

When "the dude" Lebowski is mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, two thugs urinate on his rug to coerce him into paying a debt he knows nothing about. While attempting to gain recompense for the ruined rug from his wealthy counterpart, he accepts a one-time job with high pay-off. He enlists the help of his bowling buddy, Walter, a gun-toting Jewish-convert with anger issues. Deception leads to more trouble, and it soon seems that everyone from porn empire tycoons to nihilists want something from The Dude.

A wild, freeform, Rabelaisian trip through the darkest recesses of Edinburgh low-life, focusing on Mark Renton and his attempt to give up his heroin habit, and how the latter affects his relationship with family and friends: Sean Connery wannabe Sick Boy, dimbulb Spud, psycho Begbie, 14-year-old girlfriend Diane, and clean-cut athlete Tommy, who's never touched drugs but can't help being curious about them...

This movie features the collaborative directorial efforts of four new filmmakers, each of whom directs a segment of this comedy. It's New Year's Eve at the Mon Signor Hotel, a former grand old Hollywood hotel, now fallen upon hard times. Often using physical comedy and sight gags, this movie chronicles the slapstick misadventures of Ted, the Bellhop. He's on his first night on the job, when he's asked to help out a coven of witches in the Honeymoon Suite. Things only get worse when he delivers ice to the wrong room and ends up in a domestic argument at a really bad time. Next, he foolishly agrees to watch a gangster's kids for him while he's away. Finally, he finishes off the night refereeing a ghastly wager.

The middle-aged stewardess Jackie Brown smuggles money from Mexico to Los Angeles for the arms dealer Ordell Robbie. When she gets caught by the agents Ray Nicolet and Mark Dargus with ten thousand dollars and cocaine in her purse, they propose a deal to her to help them to arrest Ordell in exchange of her freedom. Meanwhile Ordell asks the 56-year-old Max Cherry, who runs a bail bond business, to release Jackie Brown with the intention of eliminating her. Jackie suspects of Ordell's intention and plots a complicated confidence game with Max to steal half a million dollars from Ordell.

In 1944, in France, the rogue American soldiers Lieutenant Robert Yeager, Private Fred Canfield, the murderer Tony, the thief Nick and the coward Berle are transported to a military prison. However, the convoy is attacked by the Germans and they survive and flee with the intention of cross the border of Switzerland. Along their journey, they fight against a German platoon and capture the German prisoner Adolf Sachs that offers to guide them to the Swiss border. When they meet a German troop, they kill them but sooner they discover that they actually were and American commando in a mission headed by Colonel Buckner to steal a German V2 warhead. Lt. Yeager, Fred, Tony and Nick offer to risk their lives to accomplish the mission.

1978 Italian Euro War film by Enzo G. Castellari

Six thugs, who are strangers to each other, are hired by a crime boss, Joe Cabot, to carry out a diamond robbery. Right at the outset, they are given false names with the intention that they won't get too close and will concentrate on the job instead. They are completely sure that the robbery is going to be a success. But, when the police show up right at the time and the site of the robbery, panic spreads amongst the group members, and two of them are killed in the subsequent shootout, along with a few policemen and civilians. When the remaining people assemble at the premeditated rendezvous point (a warehouse), they begin to suspect that one of them is an undercover cop.

Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) is a retired widow, living in a small apartment. She spends most of her time watching TV, especially a particular self-help show. She has delusions of rising above her current dull existence by being a guest on that show. Her son, Harry (Jared Leto) is a junkie but along with his friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) has visions of making it big by becoming a drug dealer. Harry's girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) could be fashion designer or artist but is swept along in Harry's drug-centric world. Meanwhile Sara has developed an addiction of her own. She desperately wants to lose weight and so goes on a crash course involving popping pills, pills which turn out to be very addictive and harmful to her mental state.

In 1858, a bounty-hunter named King Schultz seeks out a slave named Django and buys him because he needs him to find some men he is looking for. After finding them, Django wants to find his wife, Broomhilda, who along with him were sold separately by his former owner for trying to escape. Schultz offers to help him if he chooses to stay with him and be his partner. Eventually they learn that she was sold to a plantation in Mississippi. Knowing they can't just go in and say they want her, they come up with a plan so that the owner will welcome them into his home and they can find a way.

In German-occupied France, young Jewish refugee Shosanna Dreyfus witnesses the slaughter of her family by Colonel Hans Landa. Narrowly escaping with her life, she plots her revenge several years later when German war hero Fredrick Zoller takes a rapid interest in her and arranges an illustrious movie premiere at the theater she now runs. With the promise of every major Nazi officer in attendance, the event catches the attention of the "Basterds", a group of Jewish-American guerrilla soldiers led by the ruthless Lt. Aldo Raine. As the relentless executioners advance and the conspiring young girl's plans are set in motion, their paths will cross for a fateful evening that will shake the very annals of history.

1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino

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