Latest news with #TheRoad
Buzz Feed
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Eight Devestarting Books That May Make You Cry
Recently, u/PublicConstruction55 asked r/suggestmeabook, "Please suggest a book that will devastate me," so we thought we'd share some of the suggestions. The Road by Cormac McCarthy "Man, that book is absolutely devastating. A love letter to a son he knew he'd have to entrust to the world long before he was ready to." –ArturosDadAbout the book: This haunting novel follows a father and son as they struggle to survive in a desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland. Night by Elie Wiesel "This book took me weeks to finish as I could only read a few pages at a time. A story that should always be told, and its lessons never forgotten."–AlReduxAbout the book: This is the memoir of Elie Wiesel, telling his personal account of his experience of being in concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald with his father towards the end of the Second World War. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls "This was the first book that ever devastated me. My dad had the best intentions when he decided to share one of his favourite childhood stories with us kids as our bed time story, but the devastation and sense of betrayal was very palpable when we got to a certain part of that novel."–Sisu4864About the book: This children's book follows a young boy who trains two dogs for hunting, we follow their adventures and the bond that grows between them. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro "I read this in a course so I knew a bit of what was coming and I still cried through the last few chapters. I recommend this to every person who will listen."–veronavillainyAbout the book: This dystopian novel follows a group of students growing up in a different, dark version of modern day England. It's a story of friendship, love, and considers what it means to be human. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes "This is the one. My go-to when I need to cry."–davesmissingfingersAbout the book: Beginning as a short story before being expanded into a book, Flowers for Algernon follows unintelligent Charlie Gordon. After getting an operation to expand his IQ, Charlie is also introduced to heartache. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness "I don't think I ever cried so hard at a book. It shattered me and I read it in three hours. Goodreads labels it as YA/middle school but don't believe it, it's beyond that. It deals with death and grief so it's obviously not a happy book, but it's a great one. It's so raw that it's not a novel I like to recommend, but you asked for a book to shatter your soul."–unifartcornAbout the book: We follow Conor, a lonely boy who's struggling to to deal with his mother's illness. When a monster visits him in the night, he's forced to face the truths he's been hiding from. My Lobotomy by by Howard Dully "I just finished My Lobotomy. It's a memoir of a man who was lobotomised when he was 12. I bawled my eyes out"–Bookophillia Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala "It's a beautifully written memoir about her family and the changes that unexpectedly transformed her life following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and Tsunami. I'm still thinking about this book one year after reading it."–KAM1953 H/T to u/PublicConstruction55 and r/suggestmeabook for the recommendations! Any of your own to add? Let us know in the comments below.
Daily Record
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Japanese theatre group heading to Dumfries and Galloway to explore new play
Bird Theatre will be based at the CatStrand in New Galloway for the next fortnight to work on Tom Pow's Towa Mura. A Japanese theatre group will arrive in the Glenkens this weekend for a two week stay. Bird Theatre will be based at the CatStrand in New Galloway for the next fortnight to explore a new play called Towa Mura. The play is written by Tom Pow, directed by Makoto Nakashima and will be performed by actors from the UK and Bird Theatre, with music written and performed by The Galloway Agreement. A free, ticketed presentation of the work in progress will be performed at the CatStrand on Wednesdya, August 6. The visit – funded by Creative Scotland and The Japan Foundation – is the latest stage of a relationship which began three years ago when Ruth Morris, producer of The Village and The Road by Tom Pow and The Galloway Agreement, received an exciting email from Japan. The show, which concerns rural depopulation in Europe, had just been performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe as part of the Made in Scotland Showcase. Bird Theatre Festival was inviting the company to perform at the theatre festival at Shikano in the prefecture of Tottori. The show was translated and performed with subtitles and the response was so positive the company was invited back for the following year, with additional Japanese material and a book of poems – Ghosts at Play – by Tom Pow, based on fieldwork he had done in Japanese villages that first year. On the second visit, The Galloway Agreement held a concert with Japanese musicians and a feeling grew that such collaborations could be extended further. After many conversations, it was decided that this time an exchange was possible, paving the way for this year's visit.
Hype Malaysia
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hype Malaysia
From 20th Anniversary To A Full Member Lineup: 4 Fun Facts About Super Junior's Comeback
Most K-pop idols that you usually see on mainstream media are typically from the third generation and above. On rare occasions, second-generation idols withstand the test of time, with seas of fans still rooting for their comebacks. Super Junior (슈퍼주니어) just released their 'Express' music video teaser yesterday (7th July 2025) in line with their 'Super Junior 25' album dropping on 8th July 2025. This marks the group's comeback 3 years after their last album, 'The Road', in 2022, and fans are anticipating an all-out comeback with a full-member lineup. To get prepped for their comeback, here are 4 fun facts about Super Junior's 'Super Junior 25' album: 1. 20 Years With Super Junior! Designed as a surprise treat for longtime E.L.F.s, this comeback marks a significant milestone for the group as they reach their 2nd decade since their debut in 2005. Their upcoming 12th studio album, 'Super Junior 25', pays homage to their debut album, 'Super Junior 05', which the members had thoughtfully named, making it a much more memorable experience for fans. 2. 9 Songs Featured In 'Super Junior 25' The tracklist for the upcoming album features 9 new songs from the group, featuring a wide range of genres, including high-energy pop anthems to uplifting ballads. The song 'Express Mode' serves as their title track for the upcoming album, featuring a club-pop beat with the members in sleek attire for their high-energy comeback 3. Full Active Member Lineup With active member Kim Heechul (김희철) absent in Super Junior's 'Show Time' music video last year, due to health complications, fans are finally getting a full-member lineup for their comeback album. All active members of Super Junior will be participating in their comeback and ongoing promotions in the months ahead. 4. Fan Fest for Their 20th Anniversary Hitting 20 years is no ordinary feat for idols, and with Super Junior, you know it's going to be an ultimate fan fest! In light of their comeback, Super Junior announced various projects to bring to fans, including their 'Super Show 10' world tour, pop-up stores and exhibitions. Watch the full teaser here: Sources: Kpop Albums, Koreaboo, Soompi Alyssa Gabrielle contributed to this article
Los Angeles Times
03-07-2025
- Los Angeles Times
The road trip — sublime, profane and (almost) reclaimed
My faith in the American road trip was saved by a small town in Texas on the Fourth of July. When that faith began to waver, and how far the road trip sank on my leaderboard of American pastimes — well, that's harder to say. Below putt-putt golf, perhaps, and south of riverboat gambling. The highway had taken on an elegiac torpor, and a line by the poet Louis Simpson filled my head: '[T]he Open Road goes to the used-car lot.' That's a grim mantra, particularly if you take — or occasionally teach — the American road trip. I'm afraid I do both. In a syllabus I've peddled, mostly proudly, for a decade, I offer the road as a mobile entrée to generational angst (Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road') and racial hierarchies (Colson Whitehead's 'The Underground Railroad'). I introduce dads in search of salvation (Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road') and young women escaping abuse ('Thelma & Louise'). This transcontinental whirlwind of texts implies that road trips are uniquely qualified to capture an enormous, beautiful and flawed country. That wanderlust is a defining facet of the American psyche. That we'll find ourselves just over that hill. For years I believed this. I could opine on the Interstate Highway System and the drive-thru window. I ascribed meaning to the car that NASA left on the moon. My course, just one of many on the topic, gave my musings purpose, and joy. But when my family and I drove from Oregon to Indiana in 2023, I had doubts. The West burned in our rearview, and our Camry's combustive hum felt like another agent of ecological despair. We rolled up the windows and maxed out the AC until our sedan became a portable living room that mostly succeeded in keeping the world at bay. Here were our snacks, and there were our pillows. Each passenger could pacify themselves with a screen. This is where the road trip fails us — or we fail it. Ready access to digital detachments (and directions) have brought sameness to an experience that should be built on surprise. A good road trip is a series of discrete episodes (I did this, I did that) held together by the flimsiest of threads: I did them by car. Planning (and plot) are beside the point, as anyone who's read 'On the Road' knows — though that didn't stop my wife and me from planning our cross-country trek. We visited the Mojave (lunar-like and Looney Tunes) and the Grand Canyon (OK, it's breathtaking). We spied Jesse Pinkman's house in Albuquerque and ate fudge from — forgive me — Uranus, Mo. I loved alternating between the sublime and the profane. I loved the fudge too. But this felt more like sightseeing than road-tripping, a notion that returned whenever I returned to the car. Sameness haunted that interior, but sameness stalked us down the highway too. This is an old complaint, mind you — old as Howard Johnson's, old as Humbert Humbert — but corporate lodgings and chain restaurants do flatten the road trip. My reading, though, had taught me that people (not place) define a road trip. The Easy Riders and the Cheryl Strayeds. The Misfits or the Brad Pitts bouncing shirtless on a bed. And that the people of the road change constantly, stretching one's fixed idea of these United States. Unfortunately, this is where the worst of my road dread began: the American demos itself. There's no way to say this that doesn't sound cynical or misanthropic, but I was over meeting the American people. Despite the possibility of their unacknowledged insights. With little hope that they were stockpiling some nuance lost to the polls. I'd date this disillusionment to Nov. 3, 2016, and simply note that I'm sorry. Let me tell you then about Shamrock, Texas — or really the Shamrock Country Inn in Shamrock, Texas — where my bottomed-out belief in the road was restored. At least temporarily. The inn is just east of a famous art deco filling station that looks like a nail stuck in the ground. Shamrock sits at a symbolic crossroads where two border-to-border highways converge. (U.S. Route 83 and our route: I-40.) And everything from the vape shop to the towing-agency-cum-pizza-parlor bore the name of Historic Route 66. This all lent our evening in the town a whiff of kismet, of cosmic truth. A South Asian family lived on site and owned the motel; they were the warmest hosts we'd known all trip. A middle-aged woman led us to our room, one hand finding my wife's shoulder as she unlocked the door. A man, the woman's husband presumably, watered new flowers ringing the inn's sign. They asked about our travels and noted the forecast, doing so with an air of protection that felt ancient, as if 'shelter' meant more than clean sheets and cable TV. As we talked, the sunset gathered strength in the west. I'm a poet and thus programmed to find meaning in the unlikeliest of places. But that evening, it arrived easy as fireflies. I could hold its small light in my hand. Take the inn's name, the town's too, which is more than a token of luck, or an emoji. It's a reminder of earlier immigrants who, following persecution, folded themselves into the U.S. I thought of the Irish as I looked at the motel's walls: white atop red, blue doors with a star, newly painted to evoke the Texas state flag. I thought of assimilation and acceptance. I wondered if my hosts had sought — and perhaps found — either, or both. I wondered if whiteness, a trait that had aided the Irish, would stand in their way. As darkness fell, fireworks started rising like exclamation points in the east, each burst briefly muffling a legion of bullfrogs. Then one came hopping toward us, warty and enormous, to our son's great delight. We coaxed it toward our motel room, one more gift — wholly undeserved — from a natural world we degraded each day. A few guests arrived as we stood there. Good ole boys in pickups. A vanload of Swedes headed to the Grand Canyon. And our hosts remained too, watching the sky. In the morning they'd serve us breakfast: eggs, biscuits and Texas-shaped waffles. 'I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like,' Walt Whitman writes in 'Song of the Open Road.' It's a line that I've loved for years without ever believing it held any broad truth. And yet I know full well that I — a white guy who'd not heard of 'The Negro Motorist Green Book' until researching for my class — should be the likeliest reader to agree. On that evening, as sleep overtook me, I got close. For a few hours there, I loved the American road trip. As the dreams of dissimilar people, dazzled and drowsy and dwelling together, filled a motel in rural Texas. As fireworks resolved into a sulfurous breeze. But sleep would also illustrate the tenuousness of that union. Soon we'd drive into the heat of tomorrow, and this evening — like the promise of our country — would disappear into the past. Derek Mong is a poet, critic and English professor at Wabash College. His latest collection is 'When the Earth Flies into the Sun.' This article was produced in partnership with Zócalo Public Square.
Indian Express
15-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
My Father and I: Writers on books and bonding
'Some of my most cherished memories are of the family trips we took together to Nainital, Nepal, Mussoorie, Pachmarhi, Jabalpur and other places.' These were not just holidays, but deeply anchoring experiences: 'Travelling with him and my mother, discovering new places, and just being together as a family gave me a deep sense of security and joy.' That sense lingers still: 'Even now, those memories evoke a warm nostalgia and a quiet smile.' Former diplomat and author Vikas Swarup with his father Vinod Swarup. (Source: Express Photo) As years pass, so too does the curiosity deepen about who our parents were before they became our parents. 'I often wonder what he was like as a young man, before life happened. We never really had that kind of conversation, and I wish we had.' But timing, always elusive: 'He turns 90 this year, but I doubt he would want to have that kind of conversation now!' He suggests two that resonate. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini — 'which captures the silences and complexities in father-son relationships.' And The Road by Cormac McCarthy — 'though bleak in tone, is a haunting meditation on the bond between a father and son.' (Vikas Swarup, former diplomat; author of Slumdog Millionaire, The Accidental Apprentice, Six Suspects; host of the podcast Diplomatic Dispatch) On a favorite memory: 'Let me show you some photographs, each one encrypted with voices and stories,' she writes. 'Old black and white photographs of my parents and me, held in place by neat cardboard corners in the stiff black pages of a vintage family album. My father, mother and me. In the active periphery of my childhood there were aunts and uncles and grandmother, each one a strong presence. But the nucleus of my world was the three of us.' She remembers a summer evening when she was three and a half, and seized by a sudden desire to become a 'Sahib'. 'Not a memsahib but a Sahib. Maybe inspired by a picture in some book my father read out to me… In the absence of a tail-coat I demanded my green winter frock-coat and in default of the fitted breeches I shrieked for my green woollen dungarees with the red embroidered squirrel on its chest-flap.' The trouble was — it was June. 'These were winter clothes, packed away with dried neem leaves and camphor balls in the heavy metal trunk, and the timing of my impassioned fantasy had fallen on a hot June evening!' Her mother tried to resist. 'My mother threatened me with a slap, several slaps and imminent hammering but I gritted my teeth and persisted.' Then came her father: 'That long-suffering man of imagination, came to my rescue and reasoned: 'The child is deeply involved in some creative make-believe. We must not shatter it. Take out the woollen clothes and dress her.'' 'So, hatted and booted, in thick woollen clothes, swaying a stick, a child walked down the Colonelgunj road… and into the triangular park! My Dad walked with me with a very straight face, fully co-operating with my inner life. We must have made a curious spectacle that hot June evening… I remember taking a turn or two round the park before the heat and oppression of my heavy woollen clothes put my fantasy to flight.' 'How can I ever retrieve my father in words? A lot of people who knew him used the word 'genius'… Musician, mathematician, physicist, linguist, philosopher, educationist. He was all these things… I am in no position to measure him. He was my father, playmate, refuge, counselor.' She remembers how he let her scrawl on walls, pile toys on his bed, sketch elephants, and hold captured flies in his palm before gently releasing them. 'His very first sentence, on seeing me a few minutes after I was born, was: 'This daughter is more to me than seven sons can be to their fathers. And I shall teach her seven languages.'' She reflects now: 'The one thing I wish I could tell my father (who passed away in 1990) is: Dad, it hasn't been an easy life for me but I discovered that I had hidden reserves of strength in me, thanks to the depth of security you provided me as a child.' 'Off-hand I can recall To Kill A Mockingbird.' (Neelum Saran Gour, author of 'Sikandar Chowk Park', 'Virtual Realities', and 'Messrs Dickens, Doyle and Wodehouse Pvt. Ltd.') 'As a child, I had a deep fascination for trains. I must have been three or four years old at the time. My father would take me to the Ghatsila railway station just to look at trains and listen to their piercing whistles. We used to go up on the foot overbridge and see trains passing beneath. When an engine honked loudly, I used to be so frightened I would grab my father's hand and hold it tightly.' The railway station then was still cloaked in colonial-era architecture — 'that sturdy structure of bricks and lime' — but to the young Sowvendra, 'this just added to my sense of wonder and awe, and my father was my companion in this adventure.' 'I come from a space where fathers are still figures of authority. Everything that fathers say are correct. We don't usually oppose them. So to think that I would have something to say to my father is quite unlikely.' And yet, he offers: 'Perhaps, only an apology for the disappointments I may have caused him and to tell him how much having him as my father has meant to me.' The Small-Town Sea by Anees Salim. 'This is a favourite of mine. I will recommend it to everyone but my father though.' (Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, author of The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey, The Adivasi Will Not Dance, and Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire) 'My father and I have always loved furniture-gazing in vintage shops.' It began in childhood in Calcutta — 'in the auction houses in Park Street or Russell Street or in the dingy but incredible shops of Gopalnagar near New Alipore.' Their shared passion was less about purchasing and more about the romance of discovering: 'Our budgets seldom matched our vision. (Of course, for my father, the true joy was uncovering a jewel from a dump. A set of nested tables that turned out to be rosewood: the shopkeeper did not change the original price he'd quoted as a salaam to my father.)' Later, in Delhi, this father-daughter ritual continued. 'He and I have worn out the soles of our shoes in and around MG Road and Amar Colony. There was one memorable trip to the land of Punjabi Baroque, Keerti Nagar, though we didn't buy.' Their ultimate favourite? 'Sharma Farms in Chhatarpur.' But even when purchases were made, they weren't necessarily practical: 'Our desires have always exceeded the sizes of the homes we have to furnish at any given moment. And sometimes our purchases end up giving off a whiff of grandiosity which is perhaps a little comic.' Still, the act is rich with meaning. 'Baba and I have filled mansions without owning them — and had robust disagreements about the placement of pieces in said mansions (for instance, where would one place the gorgeous corner piece with the four giant flying cherubs, in the most fine-grained of mahogany?).' 'It is glorious. It is mad. It is a regular weekday afternoon jaunt. We are pros after all; we won't go to any of these places on the weekend, when people who want to buy furniture (not dreams) come.' 'My husband hopes that our daughter will do the same with him in Defence Expo one (Devapriya Roy, author of Indira; The Vague Woman's Handbook; Friends from College, and The Heat and Dust Project) 'My father, Pran Chopra — eminent journalist, super intelligent mind.' For much of her life, he remained emotionally reserved, and their relationship, tinged with distance. 'He was always reserved about his emotions and I was a bit formal with him.' But in the twilight of his life, a profound reversal occurred, not just in memory, but in relationship. 'Towards his last days, as that intellect wore away with age related dementia, he began to think of me as his mother and talked of his childhood, his love of me, the comfort I gave him.' In that final unraveling of mind, there was a gift of connection. 'He passed away in my arms, his head in my lap.' 'Oh dad, I loved you so. I hope you knew the comfort that you gave me.' (Paro Anand, author of Like Smoke, Nomad's Land, Being Gandhi, and I'm Not Butter Chicken; recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puruskar) 'My father passed, unexpectedly, when I was barely ten.' What remained was the ache of absence, softened only by fragments of memory: 'He was a very good humored man and my parents were very much in love. So his death tore us up. I can still feel the void.' The grief was early and searing, leaving her trying to hold on to something real. 'I remember trying to keep my eyes fixed on his feet throughout the time his body was kept in our house before the cremation, hoping that the sight would be etched in my mind forever that way.' In the years that followed, her longing became layered with speculation, of what might have been. 'It is hard to grow up without a father. I know that I probably would have disagreed with him when I grew up on many important things but I wish I had both my parents.' She offers a metaphor for the kind of nurture lost: 'Growing up with loving adults caring for you — and in our context those are mostly your biological parents — is like a sapling sprouting. By the time the sprout is ready to grow, the skin has to soften. Maybe my father would have softened by the time I was ready to leave.' (J Devika, historian, feminist, translator; author of Engendering Individuals and Kulasthreeyum Chanthappennum Undaayathengine?) Aishwarya Khosla is a journalist currently serving as Deputy Copy Editor at The Indian Express. Her writings examine the interplay of culture, identity, and politics. She began her career at the Hindustan Times, where she covered books, theatre, culture, and the Punjabi diaspora. Her editorial expertise spans the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Punjab and Online desks. She was the recipient of the The Nehru Fellowship in Politics and Elections, where she studied political campaigns, policy research, political strategy and communications for a year. She pens The Indian Express newsletter, Meanwhile, Back Home. Write to her at or You can follow her on Instagram: @ink_and_ideology, and X: @KhoslaAishwarya. ... Read More
