This 1970 memoir — the first of Maya Angelou’s five autobiographical works — angered censors for its graphic depiction of racism and sex, especially the passages in which she recounts being raped by her mother’s boyfriend as an 8-year-old child. (In the book, which was later nominated for a National Book Award, Angelou alludes to the Bible, writing, “The act of rape on an 8-year-old body is a matter of the needle giving because the camel can’t. The child gives, because the body can, and the mind of the violator can’t.”) The American Library Association ranked it the fifth most challenged book of the 21st century. The book’s title refers to the 1899 poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, one of the nation’s first prominent African-American poets. In 1993, Angelou read an original poem at Bill Clinton’s Inauguration, becoming only the second poet in U.S. history to do so after Robert Frost’s 1960 speech for JFK.
This classic French satire lampoons all things sacred: armies, churches, philosophers, even the doctrine of optimism itself. In search of “the best of all possible worlds,” Voltaire’s ever hopeful protagonist instead encounters the worst tragedies life has to offer and proceeds to describe each in a rapid, meticulous and matter-of-fact way. The effect is equal parts hilarious and shocking. (Imagine Monty Python circa 1759.) The book’s phrase “Let us eat the Jesuit. Let us eat him up!” became an instant catchphrase. The Great Council of Geneva and the administrators of Paris banned it shortly after its release, although 30,000 copies sold within a year, making it a best seller. In 1930, U.S. Customs seized Harvard-bound copies of the book, and in 1944, the U.S. post office demanded that Candide be dropped from the catalog for major retailer Concord Books.
New system launch games are usually pretty dismal — look at what happened to the Nintendo 3DS — but the PS Vita’s looks unusually promising. Here’s a rundown of the seven Vita games we’re most looking forward to (and why).
In light of the Material Girl performing at Super Bowl XLVI, TIME takes a look at her life and career, both of which have been lived firmly in the public eye.
