Famous Short Story

A crop of the cover to House of Leaves Image: Random House Did you hear that one about the book that's about a man reading a manuscript about a movie that doesn't exist? Watch Spoilers of the Week: July 29th 02:19 Now playing Instant Food - From Sci-Fi to Sci-Fact Thursday 5:12PM 01:27 Now playing What is a Necrobotic Spider? Thursday 11:35AM I first read House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski after its original publication in March 2000 and have been itching to revisit ever since. It's taken over a decade because I usually prioritize reading something I haven't read over something I already have . Then a few weeks ago, House of Leaves —one of the few books I brought with me when I moved from New York to California in 2009—kind of jumped off the bookshelf. It was time and I dove in. I know that...

Ranjani Raghavan enjoyed writing travel diaries after her school trips. She was a child in love with languages, scoring well in English, Kannada and Sanskrit. Yet, it was her acting skills that took Ranjini to the households of Karnataka. The face of popular Kannada serials 'Putta Gowri Maduve' and 'Kannadathi' is now a publishing phenomenon. Her maiden book 'Kathe Dabbi' by Bahuroopi Publications is a sensational hit. Around 9,000 copies of the Kannada book have been sold ever since it came out on September 29 last year.  "Publishers had lost hope when the pandemic hit. But the book's success is an encouraging sign," says GN Mohan, founder of Bahuroopi Publications. Mohan, who is also chief editor of Avadhi Mag, first convinced Ranjani to write a short story a week for the online portal.  When her writing struck a chord with the readers, it propelled Mohan to bring out the short stories in the form of a book. ...

The German author Daniel Kehlmann, most recently of the novel "Tyll," recommends books that explore the city's painful past and dynamic present. Raphaelle Macaron This story is part of a new series exploring the world through books. We've asked some of our favorite writers to recommend reading that helps you get to know their cities and tips on literary landmarks to check out. We'll be traveling the world with them for the next few months, from Madrid to Mexico City to Istanbul and beyond. Sign up for the Books newsletter to make sure you don't miss any stops! Berlin is not pretty. You should know that beforehand. You don't come here for the beautiful architecture of an old European city. The Berlin Cathedral feels oversized. Across the street, there is the absurd Stadtschloss — a castle that was torn down in 1950, replaced by a rather Brutalist building and then recently rebuilt from scratch true to its 19th century facade, with a hyper-modern interior....

Lurking behind the Supreme Court's endorsement of liberal free speech values while striking down Section 66A of the IT Act, is a continuation of the colonial structures of speech regulation that enables a democratically-constituted government to resist attacks on its legitimacy. —– On March 24, 2015, the Supreme Court in  Shreya Singhal   versus   Union of India  famously struck down Section 66A (punishment for sending offensive messages through communication service, etc.) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 ('IT Act') as unconstitutional for its disproportionate impact on the right to free speech under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. This provision penalized "grossly offensive", "annoying", "inconvenient" and "insulting" speech online, and several arrests were made under it targeting political opposition. The court's rulin...

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Cast: Arthur Hill David Wayne James Olson Kate Reid Paula Kelly Geners: Science Fiction Thriller Director: Robert Wise Release Date: Mar 12, 1971 When virtually all of the residents of Piedmont, New Mexico, are found dead after the return to Earth of a space satellite, the head of the US Air Force's Project Scoop declares an emergency. A group of eminent scientists led by Dr. Jeremy Stone scramble to a secure laboratory and try to first isolate the life form while determining why two people from Piedmont - an old alcoholic and a six-month-old baby - survived. The scientists methodically study the alien life form unaware that it has already mutated and presents a far greater danger in the lab, which is equipped with a nuclear self-destruct device designed to prevent the escape of dangerous biological agents. Unfortunately, The Andromeda Strain is not available on Netflix. Although you can access th...

"Acting Class" is a new story by Nick Drnaso, adapted from his forthcoming book Acting Class (available August 16). To mark the story's publication in The Atlantic , Drnaso and Oliver Munday, the design director of the magazine, discussed the story over email. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity. Oliver Munday: Your story "Acting Class" is set, naturally, in an acting class. It opens with a teacher asking two students to volunteer to improvise a scene. Improvisation is often used as a tool to allow people to express themselves more readily. What about an acting class, as a setting, interested you most? Nick Drnaso: I've never attended an acting class, but there was something alluring about a place where you could ostensibly express yourself without embarrassment or fear of judgment. In the most childish and idealistic terms, a space where you could just play and create with other people. Maybe because my art practice has become so solitar...