Fate
We can call it destiny; we can call it providence; we can even call it the will of the gods. Whatever words we use, the idea that the events in our lives are beyond our control is powerful — which explains why so many authors, past and present, have used the ever-relevant idea of fate to communicate rich lessons about humanity.
Acceleration (2003) is a young adult novel by Graham McNamee. Narrated in the first person, it tells the story of 17-year-old Duncan as he learns of a potential serial killer in his city and his attempt to stop him. It examines themes of guilt, forgiveness, mental health, poverty, and more. Plot SummaryThe story opens with 17-year-old Duncan working a two-month stint at a lost and found, his boss being a quiet man named Jacob. The... Read Acceleration Summary
John Kennedy Toole’s novel A Confederacy of Dunces was written in the 1960s but only published years after the author’s death. It depicts the adventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, an academic but lazy man who, at age 30, lives with his mother in New Orleans in the early 1960s. Forced to find a job, he encounters a string of colorful characters endemic to the city of the time.The novel begins outside the D. H. Holmes... Read A Confederacy of Dunces Summary
“A Distant Episode,” a modernist short story by Paul Bowles, was first published in 1947 in The Partisan Review. It was one of Bowles’s first published works of fiction. The story follows an unnamed professor of linguistics as he undergoes a horrifying experience while travelling in the remote interior of Algeria.Paul Bowles was born in 1910 and grew up in New York City. He had already developed a reputation as an up-and-coming composer and music... Read A Distant Episode Summary
An epic poem composed by the Roman poet Virgil between the years of 29 and 19 BCE, the Aeneid represents one of the most important and influential works in Western literature. It centers on the story of Aeneas, a refugee from the Trojan War who was fated to found the Roman nation in Italy. This guide refers to the Oxford World Classic’s edition of the Aeneid, translated by Frederick Ahl. All study guide citations refer... Read Aeneid Summary
Agamemnon is an Attic tragedy—a work of the fifth century BCE in Athens—composed by Aeschylus (circa 525-circa 456 BCE). The play was first performed at the City Dionysia in 458 BCE. Agamemnon was the first part of the Oresteia, Aeschylus’s trilogy on the murder of Agamemnon and its grisly aftermath. It was followed by the tragedies Libation Bearers and Eumenides, which also survived, and by a satyr play titled Proteus, which was lost. The play... Read Agamemnon Summary
A Hero of Our Time is a classic work of Russian literature written by Mikhail Lermontov and published in 1840. It exemplifies the “superfluous man” trope common in later Russian literature, in which a person of great talent and genius is unable to express these talents healthily due to personal and societal circumstances of some kind. The novel, a work of historical fiction, was highly influential for its critique of tsarist Russian society and for... Read A Hero Of Our Time Summary
A House for Mr. Biswas is a 1961 historical fiction novel by V. S. Naipaul. The story takes a postcolonial perspective of the life of a Hindu Indian man in British-owned and occupied Trinidad. Now regarded as one of Naipaul's most significant novels, A House for Mr. Biswas has won numerous awards and has been adapted as a musical, a radio drama, and a television show. Naipaul is also known for the works The Mimic... Read A House for Mr. Biswas Summary
Ajax is an ancient Athenian tragedy by Sophocles. Its production date, the festival at which it was first presented, and the other tragedies performed alongside it remain unknown, but it is believed to be among Sophocles’s earlier plays, possibly from the 440s BC. The narrative retells a story from Trojan war mythology concerning the suicide of the hero Ajax and its aftermath, exploring the hero’s excesses, reversals of fortune, and social bonds.This study guide refers... Read Ajax Summary
A Long Way Home is a 2013 memoir by Saroo Brierley, an Indian-born author who was accidentally separated from his biological family at the age of five and adopted by an Australian couple. The memoir traces Saroo’s remarkable journey from India to Australia and back again 25 years later. The book inspired the 2016 film Lion and became a New York Times Best Seller after the film’s release. This guide refers to the 2015 edition published... Read A Long Way Home Summary
At around 1,000 words, “A Man Who Had No Eyes” by American author MacKinlay Kantor (born Benjamin MacKinlay Kantor) can be considered an example of flash fiction. The short story was first published in The Monitor in 1931. It is one of Kantor’s early works of fiction and is markedly different from his later works of historical fiction, which earned him literary fame. Kantor was best known for his prolific novels, many of which are... Read A Man Who Had No Eyes Summary
American Pastoral (1997) by Philip Roth examines in detail one man’s quest for the American dream and the fragility of the entire enterprise. Roth, one of the most critically acclaimed novelists of the 20th century, focuses his narrative microscope through the eyes of Nathan Zuckerman, his literary alter ego from whose perspective he has written 10 other novels, including Zuckerman Unbound (1981), The Anatomy Lesson (1983), The Human Stain (2000), and The Plot Against America... Read American Pastoral Summary
Ancillary Justice, published in 2013, is author Ann Leckie’s first novel, although she previously published short fiction in various science fiction magazines. Leckie’s first installment of the dystopian Imperial Radch trilogy, followed by Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, won numerous science fiction awards for best novel of the year and became the first book to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke awards. Ancillary Justice was also nominated for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award... Read Ancillary Justice Summary
Published in 1939, And Then There Were None is a mystery novel by Agatha Christie, best-selling novelist of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. With over 100 million copies sold, And Then There Were None is the world’s best-selling crime novel as well as one of the best-selling books of all time. It has had more adaptations than any other work by Agatha Christie, including television programs, films, radio broadcasts, and most... Read And Then There Were None Summary
Author Laura Schroff’s 2012 New York Times bestseller An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny recounts a fateful meeting between two vastly different individuals: Maurice, a young boy living in poverty and a broken home, and Schroff, a successful ad executive enjoying a fast-paced career. In the memoir, the author posits that an invisible thread joins their lives. It is beyond her... Read An Invisible Thread Summary
Sophocles, one of the three great ancient Greek tragedians, premiered Antigone in Athens circa 441 BCE. The Classical Greek theater tradition to which this play belongs began in Athens in the sixth century B.C.E. with the performance of plays in dramatic competitions at yearly religious festivals. The forms of comedy and tragedy, first developed in plays such as Antigone, have lasting influence on theater today. This study guide uses the 2003 Oxford University Press edition... Read Antigone Summary
Antony and Cleopatra is a play by William Shakespeare that was first performed in 1607. The plot, which contains elements of the romance genre, centers around the romantic affair between a Roman general, Mark Antony, and the Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra. Shakespeare had previously written the tragedy Julius Caesar in 1599 and this play continues to follow the history of Rome’s transformation from a republic into an empire. Antony and Cleopatra is one of Shakespeare’s... Read Antony and Cleopatra Summary
John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989) is the novelist’s seventh and best-selling novel to date. Through a series of flashbacks, it tells the story of an unusually small boy with a strange voice named Owen Meany who believes himself to be specially chosen by God. Narrated by John Wheelwright, Owen’s best friend, the narrative alternates between the past—which begins in 1950s New Hampshire and extends to the late 1960s—and the present, Toronto in... Read A Prayer for Owen Meany Summary
As an epigram, Milton quotes Euripides, who wrote: “This is true liberty, when free-born men, having the advise the public, may speak free, which he who can, and will, deserves high praise; who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace; what can be juster in a state than this?” (337). Milton explains that addressing Parliament in the name of the “public good” (337) is no small feat and that any person in this position... Read Areopagitica Summary
“A Retrieved Reformation,” by prolific American short story writer O. Henry, was first published as “A Retrieved Reform” in The Cosmopolitan in 1903. The story is an example of Realism, a literary movement popular in the US and Europe in the years between the end of the American Civil War and the early 20th century. Realism explores the everyday lives of ordinary people, using detailed descriptions and colloquial dialogue. Events in “A Retrieved Reformation” are... Read A Retrieved Reformation Summary
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is a 1997 essay collection by David Foster Wallace. The seven essays explore 1990s US social issues through subjects such as television, tennis, and (in the most famous essay) a Caribbean cruise. The essays have been referenced many times in popular culture, particularly the title essay, which recounts Wallace’s experiences on a cruise.This guide references the 1998 Abacus edition of the collection.SummaryIn the first essay, “Derivative Sport... Read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again Summary
A Tale of Two Cities, published in 1859, is a historical drama written by Charles Dickens. The backdrop of the novel takes place in London and Paris prior to the French Revolution. The novel, told in three parts, is a literary classic and has been adapted into numerous productions for film, theater, radio, and television.In 1775, a banker named Jarvis Lorry travels to Dover, where he meets a young, half-French woman named Lucie Manette. Together... Read A Tale of Two Cities Summary
First published in 1968, Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea follows Ged, a young man in training to be a wizard, as he embarks on a necessary journey of self-discovery and self-mastery. It is the first in a series of six novels aimed at young-adult readers. The novel has won numerous awards and is regarded as a classic of young adult fantasy literature. Set over the course of several years, the novel follows... Read A Wizard of Earthsea Summary
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver is a young adult novel about redemption, written in 2010. Following her death in a car accident, high school senior Sam Kingston wakes the next morning to find that she’s reliving the same day—February 12, or Cupid Day. She juggles the complexities of bullying, blossoming sexuality, self-confidence, and self-sacrifice after reliving the same day seven times. Through this experience, she reconnects with her family and friends, but mostly with... Read Before I Fall Summary
Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology (1943) by Jean-Paul Sartre is a foundational text for the philosophical movement of existentialism. Sartre, a 20th-century writer and philosopher, wrote Being and Nothingness while in a prisoner of war camp during World War II. Being and Nothingness addresses theories of consciousness, nothingness, self-identity, essences, and freedom. Sartre’s work builds upon a legacy of existentialist theories while defining and shaping them into a comprehensive ideology. He challenges... Read Being and Nothingness Summary
Between a Rock and a Hard Place is a 2004 adventure and survival memoir by American mountain climber Aron Ralston. The narrative focuses on Ralston’s near-death experience when his arm became stuck under a boulder in a canyon in Utah, where he remained trapped for five days until he amputated his arm. Dealing with profound existential themes, the book garnered critical acclaim and became a New York Times bestseller. A 2010 film adaptation titled 127... Read Between a Rock and a Hard Place Summary
Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon is a play that centers on the disaster that befalls two brothers when they choose to fight against their own natures. Realizing that they both love the same woman, each brother ends up pursuing the dream of the other with dire consequences.Written in 1918, Beyond the Horizon was O’Neill’s first full-length work to be produced, although it wasn’t published and first performed until 1920, the same year that it won... Read Beyond the Horizon Summary
Published in 2004, Alice Hoffman’s novel Blackbird House chronicles a house on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and its inhabitants over a 200-year span. The story, which invokes elements of magical realism, begins during the War of 1812 and ends in the present day. Shifting between first-person and third-person point-of-view, the novel delves into the themes of Love as Motivation, Resilience Resulting from Adversity, and The Power of Place in Shaping Lives.This guide refers to the 2005... Read Blackbird House Summary
Blood Meridian, a 1985 historical fiction novel by Cormac McCarthy, is one of the most celebrated works of modern American literature. The novel was inspired by people and events of the mid-19th century in the borderlands of the United States and Mexico. McCarthy’s works have won many honors including the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. Blood Meridian is often considered his greatest novel. This guide uses an eBook version of the 1992 First Vintage... Read Blood Meridian Summary
Blue Highways: A Journey into America (1982) is an autobiographical travelogue by American historian William Least Heat-Moon. The trip in question—a 13,000-mile circuit around the States—began in 1978, the book’s title deriving from out-of-the-way routes drawn in blue on an old road atlas. The author-narrator researches local history of the areas visited and interviews the many people he meets. Heat-Moon spent the subsequent years composing and revising the manuscript, and after a few rejections, it... Read Blue Highways: A Journey into America Summary
The chief protagonist of Brick Lane was born in an East Pakistan village in 1967, prior to Bangladesh Liberation War. In 1971, the nation won its independence only to suffer through a devastating famine and political turmoil marked by a succession of military coups. The narrative mostly takes place in 2001, concerning events in a Muslim immigrant community in London before and after the World Trade Center tragedy. In this span of a woman’s life... Read Brick Lane Summary
Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work, written by Dave Isay with Maya Millett and published in 2016, is a collection of brief, first-person narratives about the value and meaning of work. These stories were collected through the oral history project of StoryCorps, a nonprofit organization that records, archives, and shares stories of life in America. StoryCorps and its founder and president, Dave Isay, have received many grants and awards for the organization’s work, including... Read Callings: The Purpose and Passion of Work Summary
Candide, or Optimism was first published in 1759 by the French writer Voltaire (born Francois-Marie Arouet in 1694, died in 1778). The most famous and widely read work published by Voltaire, Candide is a satire that critiques contemporary philosophy, and specifically Leibnizian optimism, which posited the doctrine of the best of all possible worlds. Along with other French contemporaries, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, and Montesquieu, Voltaire published at the height of the French... Read Candide Summary
Published in 2015, Rainbow Rowell’s young-adult fantasy novel Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow is a spinoff of her young-adult novel Fangirl (2013) and the first book of the Simon Snow trilogy.Carry On, which was awarded a place on the Rainbow Project Book List in 2016, examines themes of love, power, and free will. Simon Snow is the Chosen One of a magical world. During his eighth and final year at the... Read Carry On Summary
Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam is a 1999 nonfiction book by Andrew X. Pham. Pham’s other books include The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars and The Theory of Flight. He is a recipient of the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Award, the Whiting Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.Plot SummaryPham, an American citizen, decides to take a cycling trip to Vietnam in a search for identity. It... Read Catfish And Mandala Summary
Charlotte’s Web was written by E. B. White, illustrated by Garth Williams, and first published in 1952. It is considered a quintessential American children’s fiction novel and has been adapted into two films (1973, 2006) and a stage musical. Over the years, Charlotte’s Web has been awarded the Newbery Honor Award for children’s books, the George C. Stone Center for Children’s Books Recognition of Merit Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, and the Massachusetts Children’s... Read Charlotte's Web Summary
Child of God (1973) is the third novel by American Pulitzer Prize–winning author Cormac McCarthy. Like McCarthy’s first two novels, Child of God is a Gothic horror set in Appalachia. The story follows the deterioration of 27-year-old Lester Ballard after he is violently dispossessed of his family farm and becomes a serial killer. Through Lester’s extreme isolation and moral corruption, McCarthy explores the themes of Fate in a World Without Grace, The Violence Inherent to... Read Child of God Summary
Cities of the Plain is a 1998 novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. The novel is the final entry in a trilogy that began with All the Pretty Horses, followed by The Crossing. The protagonists from each of the previous novels return for Cities of the Plain. This guide uses an eBook version of the 1998 Knopf edition of the novel.Plot SummaryJohn Grady Cole (the protagonist of All the Pretty Horses) and Billy Parham (the... Read Cities of the Plain Summary
The Consolation of Philosophy by Roman senator and philosopher Boethius is considered the last great philosophical work of the classical era and one of the foundational texts of medieval Christian thought. Anicius Boethius (c. 477-524 CE) was a philosopher and statesman in late Roman times, acting as advisor to the Gothic king Theodoric. Around 523, he was convicted of conspiracy and treason and sentenced to death. While in prison, and prior to his trial, he... Read Consolation Of Philosophy Summary
Since its publication in 1936, Mulk Raj Anand’s novel Coolie has become a landmark in modern Indian literature. The novel condemned the social, economic, and cultural impact of more than two centuries of British occupation and indicted India’s own rigid caste system, which had long separated its citizens into groups based on their work status and their ethnicity. The novel appeared at the height of a turbulent decade in which India itself, under the moral... Read Coolie Summary
Cujo, a horror-thriller novel first published in 1981, is the 10th novel by the American “King of Horror,” Stephen King. It was inspired by a trip the author took to a mechanic in rural Maine whose St. Bernard nearly attacked King. Cujo received several accolades upon its release and won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1982. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1983.The citations in this study... Read Cujo Summary
Content Warning: The source text and study guide both contain references to suicide.“Cupid and Psyche” is a story from the ancient Roman novel The Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden Ass) by Apuleius, written around 160 CE. The story describes the love between Cupid, the god of love, and Psyche (pronounced SY-kee), a young woman, and the trials they undergo as the result of human and divine meddling.Although the legend of Cupid and Psyche was... Read Cupid and Psyche Summary
Daughter of Fortune, first published in Spanish in 1998 (Hija de la fortuna), is the fifth novel by celebrated Latin American writer Isabel Allende. The winner of multiple awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Chile’s National Literature Prize, Allende created this work of historical fiction, in part, to explore the impact of feminism on her own life. Daughter of Fortune tells the story of a young woman, Eliza Sommers, and her odyssey of... Read Daughter Of Fortune Summary
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) is a novel by American author Willa Cather. The story is loosely based on the experiences of Priests Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Joseph Projectus Machebeuf as they sought to establish a Catholic diocese (an ecclesiastical district under the control of one particular bishop) in the newly acquired territory of New Mexico.A major figure in American literature, Cather is best known for the novels O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the... Read Death Comes for the Archbishop Summary
Originally serialized in Galaxy magazine, Dune Messiah (1969) is the sequel to Frank Herbert’s epic science fiction novel Dune (1965) and the second novel in Herbert’s six-book Dune Chronicles series. Taking place in the distant future, the novel continues the saga of Paul Atreides, a powerful messianic figure who overcame a plot against his family to become Emperor of the Known Universe. As Paul endeavors to ensure the survival of humanity across the galaxy, the... Read Dune Messiah Summary
Einstein’s Dreams (1993) by Alan Lightman is a best-selling novel that explores the intersection of art and science, and the nature of time. The novel imagines the dreams of a fictionalized version of Albert Einstein to explain various theories about time, leading up to Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity, which he formed while working as a patent clerk and starting a family in Berne, Switzerland.Each chapter of the novel features a dream that exemplifies... Read Einstein's Dreams Summary
Ethan Frome, first published in 1911, is a novella by American writer Edith Wharton. Wharton’s work, which most often concerned the lives of America’s Gilded Age elite, is usually classified as social realism or even naturalism, a realist subgenre that depicted human life and society through a determinist lens. Although Ethan Frome’s focus on rural, working-class life was unusual for Wharton, its themes and tone reflect this naturalist influence. The novel has become a staple... Read Ethan Frome Summary
Ted Chiang’s Exhalation is a collection of nine science fiction short stories. Published in 2019, the stories feature time travel, robots, artificial intelligences, and human beings grappling with an everchanging world. Seven of the nine stories appeared in previous publications, going on to win multiple Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. Through the science fiction/dystopian genre, Exhalation explores forgiveness, parenting, technology ethics, free will, and climate change. This is Ted Chiang’s second collection, following Stories of... Read Exhalation Summary
Falling Man is a 2007 novel by American author Don DeLillo. The novel explores the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. This guide uses an eBook version of the 2011 Picador edition of Falling Man.Plot SummaryOn September 11, 2001, a group of 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacks commercial passenger planes and attempt to crash them into American landmarks. In addition to one plane that crashed... Read Falling Man Summary
Far from the Madding Crowd is Thomas Hardy’s fourth novel, originally published in 1874 as a serial for Cornhill Magazine. Hardy was a Victorian poet and novelist writing in the Realist tradition. The novel is the first to be set in Hardy’s Wessex, a fictitious region of England modeled after his own Dorset and named after the early Saxon kingdom in the same region. Like much of Hardy’s work, the novel explores rural, Victorian-era English... Read Far From The Madding Crowd Summary
Four Quartets is a collection of four poems by T.S. Eliot. The four pieces were originally published between 1934 and 1942, during a period of time in which Eliot’s life was disrupted by the events of World War II. They were then collected into a single volume in 1943. The poems are linked loosely by theme; all of them are about the relationship between people and the divine. At the time of its publication, several of... Read Four Quartets Summary
Galapagos is a 1985 novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut. The novel’s narrator is the long-dead Leon Trout, a ghost who watched the evolution of humanity of the course of a million years. The story explores the themes Nature Versus Nurture, Pacifism, and Regret.This guide uses an eBook version of the 1985 Dial Press edition.Content Warning: This novel depicts explicit acts of violence and refers to death by suicide.Plot SummaryLeon Trout, the story’s narrator, is... Read Galapagos Summary
Geek Love is a 1989 dystopian novel by Katherine Dunn. The novel is structured as a memoir written by Olympia “Oly” Binewski, an albino hunchback dwarf, as she chronicles the bizarre story of her family of carnival freaks. Her parents, Aloysius “Al” and Lillian “Lil, Lily, or Crystal Lil” Binewski, had sought to prop up their faltering traveling carnival by breeding their own children into freaks through the prenatal use of illicit drugs, poison, and radiation. The family believes that “norms,”... Read Geek Love Summary
Published in 1939, Good Morning, Midnight is a semiautobiographical work written by Jean Rhys. A writer of Creole and Welsh descent, Rhys lived in the British West Indies before traveling to England to study. She married and traveled throughout Europe with her first husband, a journalist of French origin. This marriage ended in divorce. Sasha Jensen, the narrator of Good Morning, Midnight, also leaves London to follow her husband Enno. They eventually settle in Paris... Read Good Morning, Midnight Summary
Good Omens, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is a darkly comic novel originally published in 1990. It is a satirical imagining of the Biblical apocalypse featuring angels, demons, humans, and the hosts of Heaven and Hell.Pratchett is well known for his ˙comic fantasy Discworld series, which spans 41 books. Gaiman is the author of, among other titles, Stardust, American Gods, and the graphic novel series... Read Good Omens Summary
“Gooseberries,” by Russian author Anton Chekhov, is a short story that uses symbolism, subtlety, irony, and keen observation of human behavior to explore themes of the quest for happiness, the meaning of life, social expectations, privilege, and social equality. Written in mid-1898, the story is the second in what was later referred to as The Little Trilogy, together with “The Man in the Case” and “About Love.” All three stories explore the definitions of happiness... Read Gooseberries Summary
Gwendy’s Button Box is a horror fantasy novella written by the American authors Stephen King and Richard Chizmar. It is the first in a trilogy and was published in 2018. The novel follows Gwendy Peterson, a young and awkward middle school student, whose life changes when she becomes the guardian of a magical button box that has the potential for extreme good and extreme destruction. The novella explores themes such as Fate Versus Free Will... Read Gwendy's Button Box Summary
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a 1998 young adult fantasy novel by J.K. Rowling, the second in the Harry Potter series. The story follows Harry’s tumultuous second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, including an encounter with Voldemort, the wizard who killed Harry’s parents. Against this fantastic backdrop, Rowling examines such themes as death, fame, friendship, choice, and prejudice. Upon release, the novel became a worldwide bestseller and won several... Read Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets Summary
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016) is a two-part play written by Jack Thorne, based on an original story collaboratively created by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne himself. Set in the universe of the Harry Potter books penned by J. K. Rowling, the play follows events occurring 19 years after the epilogue of the seventh book, The Deathly Hallows (2007); the story revolves around Albus Potter, the second son and middle child... Read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Summary
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the sequel to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is seventh installment in the record-breaking Harry Potter series and the highly-anticipated conclusion of the boy wizard’s story. Since the publication of the first Harry Potter novel in 1997, the series has sold over 500 million copies, and Harry Potter has become the best-selling fantasy series of all time. Released 10 years after the initial publication of the first Harry... Read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Summary
Heartless, first published in 2016, is a contemporary fantasy Young Adult novel by Marissa Meyer. Meyer is best known for her dystopian sci-fi YA series The Lunar Chronicles, inspired by fairy tales such as Cinderella and Snow White. Set in a fantasy world, Heartless imagines the backstory of Lewis Carroll’s iconic character the Queen of Hearts from the 1876 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Heartless is also popular among the BookTok community. This guide utilizes... Read Heartless Summary
Hero and Leander is an epyllion (brief epic) by 16th-century English poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe. It can also be described as a mythological-erotic poem, one of a number of such poems that were published in England around this time, including Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. The poem is based on the ancient Greek story of two tragic lovers. The exact date of composition is not known but the poem was published in 1598, five years... Read Hero and Leander Summary
Hippolytus is a tragedy by Euripides, originally produced in Athens at the City Dionysia of 428 BCE. The tetralogy to which Hippolytus belonged earned Euripides the first prize that year. According to ancient authorities, this was Euripides’s second attempt at a play on the myth of Hippolytus, his earlier play having apparently horrified contemporary Athenians with its allegedly sensational depiction of Phaedra. Euripides’s original Hippolytus no longer survives, but the revised play quickly came to... Read Hippolytus Summary
Herodotus, “the Father of History,” researched and wrote the Histories in the middle of the 5th century BCE. Composed in the Ionic dialect of ancient Greek, this expansive account of the Greco-Persian war that occurred during the first two decades of the 5th century is the first prose masterpiece in European literature. The work traces the conflict between the Greek city-states and the Persian empire from its origins in the conquest of the Hellenic settlements... Read Histories Summary
Louis Sachar’s 1998 children’s mystery novel, Holes, tells the story of Stanley Yelnats, a 14-year-old boy accused of stealing a pair of shoes. A judge sentences him to 18 months in a camp, where a tyrannical warden has the boys digging five-foot by five-foot holes that appear random. However, their activity hints at the town’s complicated past and an outlaw’s lost treasure. The novel was awarded the 1998 National Book Award and the 1999 Newbery... Read Holes Summary
Published in 2016, Hour of the Bees is a young adult magical realism novel by Lindsay Eagar. Set in contemporary New Mexico, the story follows 12-year-old Carol as she spends the summer on her grandfather’s sheep ranch, helping her family prepare it for sale and helping care for her grandfather, who has dementia. However, her grandfather’s stories of the land’s magic and history cause her to fall in love with it. Hour of the Bees... Read Hour of the Bees Summary
Housekeeping (1980) is a novel by Marilynne Robinson that follows the upbringing of two sisters, Ruthie and Lucille Stone, in Fingerbone, Idaho, in the 1950s. This is the first novel by Marilynne Robinson. It was awarded the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, an award the author later won for her novel Gilead (2004). Beyond Housekeeping, Robinson is most known for Gilead (2004) and Home (2008). Housekeeping, which has been named... Read Housekeeping Summary
The novel House Made of Dawn, by N. Scott Momaday, was first published in 1968. Heralded as a major landmark in the emergence of Indigenous American literature, the novel won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. House Made of Dawn blends fictional and nonfictional elements to depict life on an Indigenous American reservation like the one where Momaday grew up.This guide uses an eBook version of the 2018 First Harper Perennial Modern Classics (50th Anniversary)... Read House Made of Dawn Summary
Published in 2011, I Let You Go is Clare Mackintosh’s debut novel. In 2016 it won Theakson’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. That same year, the French translation won Best International Novel at the Cognac Festival Prix du Polar Awards. In 2017, publisher Little, Brown said it had sold more than one million copies. Mackintosh spent 12 years in the police force before becoming a writer. She has said that a real-life... Read I Let You Go Summary
I’ll Give You the Sun (2015) is an award-winning novel penned by Jandy Nelson about relationships, art, and destiny. It follows the story of twins Noah and Jude Sweetwine who once shared a close relationship but find themselves barely speaking to each other two years after their mother’s death.Jandy Nelson is an American author who writes young adult fiction. I’ll Give You the Sun is her second novel, which won numerous awards and honors, including... Read I'll Give You the Sun Summary
Published in 1983, Ironweed is the third entry in William Kennedy’s cycle of historical fiction set in Albany, New York; it garnered critical acclaim and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. The novel details a few days in the life of Francis Phelan, a drifter long estranged from his family, upon his return to Albany in 1938, taking his story as a chance... Read Ironweed Summary
July’s People, a 1981 dystopian novel by South African author Nadine Gordimer, imagines the aftermath of a bloody uprising that topples South Africa’s notorious, white-ruled apartheid regime. Her novel, which follows a white family’s desperate flight from Johannesburg, traces the complex interdependencies of white and Black South Africans, revealing the insidiousness of the regime’s racial disparities and mindsets, even among liberal, well-meaning white people. Through the lens of this hypothetical future, Gordimer’s novel explores racial... Read July's People Summary
A coming-of-age story that raises many questions about concepts such as good and evil, reality, time, and memory, Kafka on the Shore describes the journey of a fifteen year-old run-away, Kafka Tamura, from his home in Tokyo to the shores of Takamatsu. Kafka flees home because his father, a famous—but violent—sculptor, cursed him: he will kill his father and sleep with his mother and sister. Kafka’s mother fled with his older sister when Kafka was... Read Kafka on the Shore Summary
The 1979 novel Kindred was written by Octavia E. Butler, a Black author from California who wrote science fiction that challenged white hegemony. The novel tells the story of Edana “Dana” Franklin, a young Black woman in 1976 whose connection to a young white boy named Rufus Weylin allows her to time travel to 1800s Maryland. As she jumps between 1976 and the 1800s, she learns how she and Rufus are connected, and she must survive... Read Kindred Summary
American author Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) wrote “King of the Bingo Game” in 1944. The short story was originally published in the New York literary journal Tomorrow in November 1944 and is widely considered a precursor to his classic novel Invisible Man (1953). Ellison was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance and is considered one of the most important American authors of the 20th century. Invisible Man won a National Book Award in 1953, and... Read King of the Bingo Game Summary
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Jerry Spinelli’s beloved free-spirited character from his eponymously titled 2000 young adult novel, Stargirl, returns in this companion work Love, Stargirl (2007). Writing the “World’s Longest Letter” to her ex-boyfriend, Leo, 16-year-old Stargirl chronicles her new life in Pennsylvania. Lonely and emotionally wounded by Leo’s rejection, Stargirl struggles to regain her confidence. Over the course of a year, Stargirl forms lasting friendships, falls for charismatic bad boy, Perry, and learns important lessons about self-worth and... Read Love, Stargirl Summary
Manon Lescaut, written by Abbé Antoine Francois Prévost and published in 1731, is perhaps best described as a novella. Originally just a small piece of Prévost’s seven-volume work, Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality, it quickly became very popular and is now Prévost’s most well-known work. Memoirs is a fictional autobiography of Monsieur de Renoncour, who introduces Manon Lescaut, which is in turn narrated by the protagonist of the story, the Chevalier Des... Read Manon Lescaut Summary
Martin Eden is a 1909 novel by American author Jack London. Known for his stories of adventure and use of naturalism and realism, London authored more than 50 books, including Call of the Wild and White Fang, before his untimely death at age 40. London wrote Martin Eden at the height of his literary career, inspired by his own disillusionment with fame and literary critics. Although the protagonist’s individualist principles are at odds with London’s... Read Martin Eden Summary
Matched is a science fiction novel for young adults by best-selling author Ally Condie. Published in 2010, it is the first novel in the Matched trilogy. It was followed by Crossed in 2011 and Reached in 2012. Matched was a critical and commercial success—as were the other two books in the trilogy. It was a New York Times bestseller and named one of the best children’s books of the year by Publisher’s Weekly. The Young... Read Matched Summary
Maus by Art Spiegelman was the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize. It originally ran in Spiegelman’s Raw magazine between 1980 and 1991 before receiving mainstream attention as two collected volumes, Maus I in 1986 and Maus II in 1991. This guide is based on the 1996 complete edition. This historic memoir interlaces two narratives, one of Spiegelman’s Jewish father as he survives World War II Poland and the Auschwitz concentration camp, and... Read Maus Summary
Meditations is a collection of prose philosophical reflections and exercises composed in Koine Greek by Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who lived from 121-180 and ruled from 161-180. Though the precise dating of his compositions is unknown and they are not believed to be presented in chronological order, at least some of the books were written while he was on military campaign in the north of Europe during his reign. Scholars are generally in consensus that... Read Meditations Summary
Meditations on First Philosophy is a philosophical treatise by René Descartes. Originally published in Latin in 1641, the text would go on to influence European and global philosophical traditions. In this work, Descartes argues for the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. Two of its major contributions to philosophy are mind/body dualism and the famous phrase “I think, therefore, I am.” The book comprises six meditations wherein Descartes seeks to doubt all... Read Meditations on First Philosophy Summary
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In writing Mother to Mother, Sindiwe Magona drew inspiration from a real event: the murder of a white American named Amy Biehl by young black men in 1990s South Africa. The crime caused shockwaves around the world, not least because Biehl herself had come to South Africa to combat apartheid—the system of segregation and discrimination that relegated black South Africans, as well as other people of color, to second-class citizenship.On the face of it, then... Read Mother to Mother Summary
Murder in the Cathedral is a verse drama by T.S. Eliot that portrays the final days of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was assassinated and martyred in 1170. Written in 1935 for the Canterbury Festival, the play explores themes of faith, power, martyrdom, and the conflict between church and state. Many stage performances of the play have been produced, and Murder in the Cathedral has also been adapted for television, film, and opera... Read Murder in the Cathedral Summary
Never Let Me Go is a 2005 novel by Kazuo Ishiguro set in an alternative dystopian version of Great Britain in the 1990s in which cloning technology allows for the mass proliferation of organ donation. Medical problems like cancer are cured because organs are harvested from clones through a state-sanctioned program. The cloned “donors” have their organs taken one at a time until they die. The novel is narrated by Kathy, a clone who works... Read Never Let Me Go Summary
Njal’s Saga is a late medieval Icelandic family saga authored around 1280 but set around the year 1000. It combines legend and history—many of its protagonists were historical figures, and other historical sources corroborate some of the major events the saga mentions. However, the author also embellishes characters and events as he describes them in the saga.The saga recounts intermarriage, friendships, and tragic blood feuds between multiple Icelandic families who trace their ancestry back to... Read Njals Saga Summary
No Matter How Loud I Shout is a work of nonfiction written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes and published in 1996. This work comprises the author’s ethnographical observations and participations in the Los Angeles juvenile justice system for the year of 1994. Humes asserts that the names of juveniles have been changed in accordance with state laws regarding confidentiality; however, everything else is true, and reported in the allegedly unbiased style of 1990s investigative journalism... Read No Matter How Loud I Shout Summary
Norse Mythology is a 2017 collection of short stories by British author Neil Gaiman. The stories are retellings of tales from ancient Norse mythology, presented mostly in retrospect by an unnamed narrator. Through frequent addresses to the audience, the narration evokes the oral tradition of storytelling.In the beginning, there was nothing but darkness and fire until the creation of the nine worlds. Odin and his brothers create other beings; Odin, the all-father breathes life into... Read Norse Mythology Summary
Sophocles’s play Oedipus Rex, first performed in the early-to-mid 400s BCE, is one of the most famous and influential tragedies left to us from the ancient Greek tradition. Based on the myth of Oedipus, whose cursed fate was to marry his mother and kill his father, the play explores themes of destiny, free will, and literal and metaphoric vision and blindness. This guide uses the 1984 Penguin edition of The Three Theban Plays, translated by... Read Oedipus Rex Summary
Published in 2010, novelist and poet Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s One Amazing Thing tells the story of nine people from diverse backgrounds who become trapped inside the visa office of the Indian Consulate after a major earthquake hits. As they wait for help to arrive, each person takes a turn telling a story from their own life, often revealing feelings or tales previously unshared. Told in third-person perspective from the point of view of each character... Read One Amazing Thing Summary
One Day in December is a romance novel by Josie Silver, told through the first-person point of view of two characters: Jack O’Mara and Laurie James. The story focuses on specific months in the characters’ lives, providing a circular narrative that encourages the reader to notice how people develop but do not necessarily change over time. A #1 New York Times bestseller, the novel was published in 2018 by Broadway Books of Crown Publishing Group... Read One Day in December Summary
One Hundred Years of Solitude, first published in Spanish in 1967 as Cien años de soledad, is an internationally renowned and classic work of literature by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez. The most highly regarded English version of the book is Gregory Rabassa’s translation, which was first published in 1970. This guide uses citations from the HarperPerennial Modern Classics Edition, which was released in 2006. García Márquez became the fourth Latin American winner of the... Read One Hundred Years of Solitude Summary
Written in 458 BC by Greek playwright Aeschylus, The Oresteia is a trilogy of plays that includes Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides, as well as the lost satyr play, Proteus. The plays of The Oresteia are classic tragedies, a dramatic genre focused on the piteous and cathartic downfall of great heroes. The plays were written to be performed at the City Dionysia festival which celebrated Dionysus, god of wine and theater. The festival was... Read Oresteia Summary
Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a novella written by Katherine Anne Porter. It was published in 1939, along with two other short novellas, Old Mortality and Noon Wine, under the collective title Pale Horse, Pale Rider. The story portrays two young lovers who are tragically affected by the 1918 influenza epidemic, or Spanish Flu.This guide uses an eBook version of the 2008 Library of America edition.Plot SummaryMiranda is a young female theater critic who lives... Read Pale Horse, Pale Rider Summary
Pet Sematary is a 1983 novel by Stephen King. It was adapted into a film in 1989 and a second film adaptation is scheduled to be released in April 2019. The book takes place in semi-rural Ludlow, Maine, a small town that Chicago doctor, Louis Creed, has just moved to with his family. Dr. Creed has taken a job at the university and moved his family against the wishes of his wife’s parents, with whom... Read Pet Sematary Summary
The debut novel of British author Charles Dickens, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (commonly known as The Pickwick Papers) was first published as a series by Chapman and Hall between 1836 and 1837. The Pickwick Papers chronicles the adventures of the members of the Pickwick Club, a group of travelers who journey around England and share their experiences. Because of the original serial format of the novel, the chapters contain individual but interconnected... Read Pickwick Papers Summary
Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks was Horatio Alger, Jr.’s first bestselling book. Ragged Dick was serialized in 1867 in the monthly American children’s magazine, Student and Schoolmate, prior to its successful publication as a novel in 1868. The first volume in a six-volume series, Ragged Dick established Alger’s primary theme of a boy’s rise from humble beginnings to prosperity and respectability. Alger’s “rags to riches” narrative built on... Read Ragged Dick Summary
“Rappaccini’s Daughter” (1844) is a Gothic short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) first published in The United States Magazines and Democratic Review. In 1846, it was republished in a collection of stories and sketches, Mosses from an Old Manse. Hawthorne was a leader of the Dark Romantic or Gothic movement in American literature. His close friends included fellow Massachusetts writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Ralph Waldo Emerson.The work is prefaced by Hawthorne, who claims to... Read Rappaccini's Daughter Summary
Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution (1997) by Ji-li Jiang covers two and a half years in the author’s life, from the spring of 1966 when she was 12 years old to the fall of 1968 when she was 14 (although the Cultural Revolution continued until Mao Ze-dong’s death in 1976). The memoir is also Jiang’s coming-of-age story, as it focuses on a key time in her adolescent development. This study guide... Read Red Scarf Girl Summary
Richard III is a history play by William Shakespeare written between 1592 and 1594. It is one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays and his second longest. The play depicts the rise of King Richard III of England, also known as Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Shakespeare portrays Richard as a Machiavellian tyrant who uses lies and violence to unjustly seize the throne during a politically turbulent period of England’s history known as the Wars of the Roses... Read Richard III Summary
Riders to the Sea (1904) is a one-act Irish play by John Millington Synge, originally performed in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The play portrays the events of one day in the cottage of a low-income family living on Inishmaan, one of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, as they cope with the loss of male relatives to the rough waters between the islands and mainland Ireland. This short play incorporates themes... Read Riders to the Sea Summary
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy by the English playwright William Shakespeare. It is among Shakespeare’s best-known plays and, like its author, has been highly influential in shaping the course of English-language literature. First performed before 1597 (the date of its earliest known printing), it has been popular ever since. Like most of Shakespeare’s plays, it employs a combination of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) and prose, with occasional deviations in form; for example, Shakespeare... Read Romeo and Juliet Summary
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a three-act play by the English playwright Tom Stoppard. It is an existentialist, absurdist satire featuring characters and events from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. First performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1966, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead enjoyed critical success, winning The New York Drama Critics’ Circle’s Award for Best Play and four Tony Awards in 1968. Since then, the play has been adapted into several radio plays and a... Read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Summary
Seven Against Thebes is a tragedy composed by Aeschylus and performed for the first time at the City Dionysia festival in 467 BCE. It was the final play of a connected trilogy based on the myths of Oedipus and his family, but the first two plays—Laius and Oedipus—are now lost, as is the satyr play Sphinx that would have been performed following the trilogy. This set of plays won first prize the year it was... Read Seven Against Thebes Summary
Shadow Divers: The True Story of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II (2004) by Robert Kurson is a celebrated nonfiction adventure book. Kurson, an adventure journalist whose stories have been featured in Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine, is known for his immersive and entertaining style. His first book-length work, Shadow Divers was a New York Times Best Seller and won the... Read Shadow Divers Summary
Shanghai Girls (May 2009) is a New York Times bestselling historical novel by Lisa See. It is the first of a two-book series that concludes with Dreams of Joy (2011). The author’s paternal great-grandfather emigrated from China, and many of See’s books examine the Chinese immigrant experience in America. Other titles that cover similar subject matter are Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005), Peony in Love (2007), China Dolls (2014), The Tea Girl of... Read Shanghai Girls Summary
Paolo Bacigalupi’s young adult dystopian novel Ship Breaker (2010) was a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and the recipient of both the Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book and the Michael L. Printz Award for young adult fiction. The story takes place in a postapocalyptic future in the United States, somewhere west of old New Orleans. The human race is facing economic and environmental devastation due to climate change... Read Ship Breaker Summary
Slaughterhouse-Five is a 1969 science fiction novel written by the American author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. The novel deals with anti-war themes and time travel while centering its narrative around the bombing of Dresden, Germany during World War II. Slaughterhouse-Five is considered one of the most important anti-war and science fiction novels of the 20th century and has been adapted into films, theatre productions, and radio plays. Plot SummaryThe narrative of Slaughterhouse-Five is told in a... Read Slaughterhouse-Five Summary
Sophie's World is a young adult book by Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder. The book follows main character Sophie, a young girl who is fourteen years old and living with her parents in Norway. Sophie's life changes dramatically when she receives a series of strange postcards, which ask her large, existential questions about the world around her. Each day, Sophie receives a postcard, and in the evenings she receives a package from a man named Alberto... Read Sophie's World Summary
In Roland Smith’s 2011 adventure novel, Storm Runners, three middle-grade students struggle to survive and find shelter during a hurricane after their school bus crashes. While a team of rescuers drives toward the disaster in search of the missing kids, the three students use all their skills and brainpower simply to stay alive.Award-winning author Smith spent decades working as a zookeeper and world-traveling animal rescuer. He has turned his experiences into award-winning novels and non-fiction... Read Storm Runners Summary
Sundiata (also known as Sunjata) is an epic poem of the West African Mandinka (or Malinke) people. There is no single definitive source or version of this story, which originated in oral traditions of the 13th century and was passed down by griots, Mandinka poet-historians and regal advisors. Sundiata is a quasi-mythological biography of King Sundiata Keita, who founded the Mali Empire, which lasted from 1235 to 1400. The poem is also a central cultural... Read Sundiata (Sunjata) Summary
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (published as The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle in Canada and the United Kingdom) is Stuart Turton’s first novel. The novel was first published in 2018 by Harper Collins; this guide references the first Canadian edition. The novel is primarily a mystery, with some elements of science fiction and fantasy. The plot features elements traditionally associated with the murder mystery genre made famous by Agatha Christie, since the... Read The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Summary
The Adventures of Augie March is a 1953 novel by Saul Bellow. In the novel, Bellow’s third, the eponymous title character chronicles his eventful life from an underprivileged childhood in Chicago to his waning wanderlust in Paris. The novel is critically acclaimed and won the 1954 National Book Award for Fiction. Bellow was a lauded author in his lifetime, winning prestigious awards like the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution... Read The Adventures of Augie March Summary
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1835 short story “The Ambitious Guest” was originally published in The New-England Magazine. Hawthorne based his story on the Willey family tragedy of August 1826. The Willeys owned a tavern and inn at Crawford Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. That August, a severe rainstorm in the area led to a massive landslide. While the Willey House Inn and Tavern were left intact after the landslide, the family disappeared overnight and... Read The Ambitious Guest Summary
The Andromeda Strain is a 1969 science fiction novel by Michael Crichton. The book tells the story of the Wildfire Project, an initiative to investigate a mysterious alien organism discovered in Arizona. The Andromeda Strain has been adapted for film and television. It was highly praised by critics on release and credited with creating the techno-thriller genre.Plot SummaryA military team is dispatched to recover a satellite that unexpectedly crashed to Earth near Piedmont, Arizona. Everyone... Read The Andromeda Strain Summary
Originally written in German and published in 2002, Jan-Philipp Sendker’s debut novel, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, was translated into English by Kevin Wiliarty in 2006. An international bestseller, the novel received the Indies Choice Honor Award for Best Fiction Novel in 2013. In response to such acclaim, Sendker penned a sequel, A Well-Tempered Heart, in 2012. The novel is international in scope—being written by a German journalist who lived in upstate New York, detailing... Read The Art of Hearing Heartbeats Summary
The Atlantis Gene is a technological/science-fiction thriller published in 2013 by the American author A. G. Riddle. Owing a debt to writers like Dan Brown, Michael Crichton, and Tom Clancy, Riddle constructs a labyrinthine plot involving the lost city of Atlantis, the mysteries of human evolution, and a conspiracy dating back thousands of years. The Atlantis Gene is the first book in The Origin Mystery trilogy, followed by The Atlantis Plague and The Atlantis World... Read The Atlantis Gene Summary
The Back of the Turtle (2014) is a bestselling novel by Canadian American author Thomas King. King is of Cherokee Greek descent and has garnered acclaim for his novels about Indigenous Canadian experiences, including The Inconvenient Indian and Green Grass Running Water. The Back of the Turtle won King the Governor General’s literary award.The narrative follows Gabriel Quinn, a member of the First Nations community of Lethbridge, Alberta, as he returns to his family’s home... Read The Back of the Turtle Summary
The Beast in the Jungle by Henry James, first published in 1903, centers on the relationship between John Marcher, a man haunted by the premonition that his life will be defined by some catastrophic event, and May Bartram. James’s narrative dissects the psychological effects of fear and anticipation by focusing on his characters’ inner lives and existential musings. The tale is an internalized ghost story wherein Marcher’s fears become self-fulfilling prophecies of loss. The third-person... Read The Beast in the Jungle Summary
The Best of Me (2010) is a love story by the best-selling American author Nicholas Sparks. It was adapted into a feature film by the same name in 2014. The novel is about the conflict-ridden love story between Dawson Cole and Amanda Colliers, high school lovers who were separated by social circumstances. Twenty-five years later, they get together to honor the memory of Tuck Hostetler, a father-figure who was their silent supporter and well-wisher. Once... Read The Best of Me Summary
Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin is actually three narratives in one. In the novel's frame narrative, we meet Iris Chase Griffen, one of the few surviving members of the once-wealthy Chase family of Port Ticonderoga, Canada. As the book opens, she is preparing to present a creative writing award endowed in memory of her deceased sister, Laura—the ostensible author of the novel-within-a-novel (also named The Blind Assassin). Now close to death herself, Iris decides to... Read The Blind Assassin Summary
A world-traveling photographer and a farmer’s wife connect in a sudden, impossible romance in The Bridges of Madison County, a 1992 novel by Robert James Waller. Lauded by critics as a soaring, spiritual story of true love thwarted, but ridiculed by others for greeting-card sentimentality, Bridges became a #1 New York Times bestseller and stayed on the list for three years. With theater and film adaptations, it is one of the most widely read books... Read The Bridges of Madison County Summary
Nicholas Sparks’s The Choice (2007) is a traditional romance novel that delves into the complexities of love, choices, and life’s unforeseen events. The story unfolds in the picturesque coastal town of Beaufort, North Carolina, where Travis Parker, an easygoing bachelor, encounters a life-changing series of events when Gabby Holland, a determined medical student, becomes his neighbor. The novel examines the themes of Coincidence Versus Destiny, Choices and Their Consequences, and Challenges to Romantic Relationships.Sparks is... Read The Choice Summary
The Communist Manifesto is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. First written in German, the Manifesto was initially published in London in 1848. Marx was the primary author, while Engels edited the text and assisted Marx financially. They wanted to present a working set of guidelines and principles for their European socialist allies and to offer a text that communists all over the world could use to support their... Read The Communist Manifesto Summary
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) is a short novel by Thomas Pynchon that handles topics related to the US counterculture movement and the 1960s at large. In the novel, Oedipa Maas unearths a centuries-old conspiracy about warring mail-delivery firms. This discovery leads her along an absurdist investigation of the firms and their motivations. The novel has been heralded as one of the best English-language novels of the 20th century and is considered a primary... Read The Crying of Lot 49 Summary
The Dark is Rising is a 1973 contemporary fantasy novel for young adult readers by English author Susan Cooper, and the second book in The Dark is Rising Sequence. It is preceded by Over Sea, Under Stone and followed by Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree. The series, published between 1965 and 1977, focuses on eleven-year-old Will Stanton, who learns on his birthday that he is what is known as an “Old... Read The Dark Is Rising Summary
The Decameron is a collection of short stories by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, completed in 1353. The book was published in the wake of the Black Death, a bubonic plague which swept through Europe in the 14th century. The plague killed a large percentage of the population of Boccaccio’s native Florence. Boccaccio uses the epidemic as a key part of the book’s framing narrative, as in the book, a group of young Florentine men and... Read The Decameron Summary
The Dovekeepers (2011) is a historical fiction novel by Alice Hoffman, set in ancient Israel in 70-73 CE. Infused with magical realism, the book is a dramatized feminist retelling of the Siege of Masada, an event in which 960 Jews resisted the onslaught of Roman forces for nine months. The siege took place in the rugged mountain fortress of Masada and left only seven survivors: two women and five children. In Hoffman’s telling, the narrative... Read The Dovekeepers Summary
The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a novel by best-selling writer Mitch Albom. Published in 2003, it sold more than 10 million copies and appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. In 2004, the story was adapted into a made-for-television movie starring Jon Voight. In 2018, Albom penned a follow-up called The Next Person You Meet in Heaven. The novel follows the story of Eddie, a man who believes his life was... Read The Five People You Meet In Heaven Summary
In his short story “The Garden of Forking Paths,” Jorge Luis Borges uses the metaphor of the labyrinth to suggest the presence of infinite possible realities. First published in 1941 under the Spanish title “El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan,” the story reflects new modes of thought and expression, ranging from developments in quantum mechanics to the advent of detective thrillers. A spy mystery, a philosophical puzzle, and a mythic history all in one... Read The Garden of Forking Paths Summary
Published in 1999, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a psychological thriller novel by bestselling author Stephen King. Renowned for his horror writing, King draws on primal human fears as he follows spirited nine-year-old Trisha McFarland on a harrowing battle for survival after getting lost in the woods. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon explores themes of nature, faith, and the dangers of everyday life through the eyes of a plucky young heroine. Plans... Read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon Summary
The God Delusion, written by Richard Dawkins, was first published in 2006 by Bantam Press. In the book, Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist and ethologist, uses his background in science and rational thought to explore and critique the concepts of God and religion. This non-fiction work falls under the subgenre of atheist literature and tackles concepts such as the question of the existence of God, the psychological and social reasons for religious belief, the impact... Read The God Delusion Summary
Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, originally titled Northern Lights in the UK, is a young adult fantasy novel that follows 11-year-old Lyra Belacqua with her dæmon, Pantalaimon (Pan), a spiritual animal counterpart. They travel north from an alternate version of Oxford to find her friend, Roger, with the help of the gyptians, witches, and Iorek, the armored bear. Along the way, Lyra confronts unimaginable horrors, like children being severed from their dæmons by Mrs. Coultier’s... Read The Golden Compass Summary
In The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, an orphan boy is raised by ghosts in a cemetery, where he learns how to become invisible, haunt people’s dreams, and face his destiny. Published in 2008, this fantasy-adventure novel for middle-grade and young-adult readers became a #1 New York Times bestseller. It won the Newbery and Carnegie medals for best children’s book, the first time a work has received both awards. It also garnered a Hugo Award... Read The Graveyard Book Summary
Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last is a work of speculative fiction released in 2015. The novel is a reworking of her Positron series for the website Byliner: four interconnected stories that were digitally released as episodes over the course of a year, starting in March 2012. The project aimed to recapture the literary tradition of serialization, but the final installment was never released, and the novel is intended to bring things together and provide... Read The Heart Goes Last Summary
The Heretic’s Daughter (2008) is the debut novel of author Kathleen Kent. Upon publication, it immediately made the New York Times bestseller list. Kent followed this title with two other best-selling historical fiction works: The Traitor’s Wife (2010) and The Outcasts (2013). She also wrote a crime fiction trilogy that was nominated for an Edgar Award. A resident of Texas, Kent was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2020 for her contribution to... Read The Heretic's Daughter Summary
Clarice Lispector’s novel The Hour of the Star was originally published in Portuguese as A hora da estrela, by The Heirs in 1977. New Directions Paperbook published the original English translation of the novel in 1992. The novel is Lispector’s final publication during her life; her novel A Breath of Life was published posthumously. The Hour of the Star is set in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and follows the first-person narrator, Rodrigo S. M., as... Read The Hour of the Star Summary
The Hours is a 1998 novel by the American author Michael Cunningham. It is an homage to Virginia Woolf’s 1923 novel Mrs. Dalloway (of which the working title was “The Hours”). Mimicking Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness narrative style, Cunningham re-situates her characters and themes within a modern context, making them his own. The story follows three different women, in three different decades, affected by Mrs. Dalloway over the course of one June day in each of their... Read The Hours Summary
The House of Hades is the fourth of five books in the Heroes of Olympus series, which follows seven Greek and Roman demigods on a quest to prevent the rise of the earth goddess Gaea, who is bent on destroying the world.The House of Hades was written by Rick Riordan, a New York Times bestselling author who explores Roman and Greek Mythology in these two series. Riordan is the publisher of an imprint with Disney... Read The House of Hades Summary
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is an 1831 gothic novel by French author Victor Hugo, originally published under the title Notre-Dame de Paris. Set in 15th-century France, the novel concerns the intertwined stories of Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and Archdeacon Claude Frollo. The story has been adapted many times for theater, television, and film, including an animated film by Disney released in 1996.This guide refers to the 2009 Oxford Classics edition of the novel, translated from French to... Read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Summary
The Iliad is a classic ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer, a name believed to refer to a tradition of epic hexameter verse rather than an individual composer. When, how, and by whom the poem was composed continues to be debated. Scholars generally believe the poem was composed and passed on orally, possibly over hundreds of years, before it was written down at some point during the mid-8th century BC (approximately when the Greek... Read The Iliad Summary
The Immortalists is a 2018 New York Times bestselling novel by Chloe Benjamin. In the Prologue, the four Gold children, Varya, Daniel, Klara, and Simon, visit a Romani fortuneteller named Bruna Costello. Bruna predicts when each of the children will die. The novel’s four parts describe each sibling’s path through life, and, in the end, three of them—Simon, Klara, and Daniel—all die exactly when Bruna predicted.Simon Gold moves to San Francisco after the death of... Read The Immortalists Summary
The Iron Trial (2014) is a young adult fantasy novel by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare. Both Black and Clare are New York Times best-selling authors who have separately written multiple young adult novels. The Iron Trial is the first book in the Magisterium series and follows Callum “Call” Hunt, a 12-year-old boy who earns a place at a sinister magic school called the Magisterium. At the Magisterium, Call makes startling discoveries about his true... Read The Iron Trial Summary
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989) follows the stories of four Chinese women who immigrate to America and their American-born daughters. This was Tan’s first novel, a highly-acclaimed New York Times best-seller and winner of the 1989 California Book Award for Fiction. It was adapted into a film in 1993 and was the first wide American film release with a predominantly Asian American cast.Plot SummaryThe Joy Luck Club is divided into four parts... Read The Joy Luck Club Summary
Rick Riordan’s The Last Olympian is the fifth and final installment of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. Published in 2009, this fantasy children’s book was a #1 bestseller on the lists of USA Today, the LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal. The novel follows the teenage demigod Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon and of a mortal woman. He and other demigods spend their summers at Camp Half-Blood, located in Long Island, NY.When... Read The Last Olympian Summary
The Last Tycoon is an unfinished novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald that charts the rise of Monroe Stahr, a film producer in 1930s Hollywood. Its fragments were collected and edited by Fitzgerald’s friend Edmund Wilson and published posthumously in 1941, the year after Fitzgerald’s death. The book’s protagonist is widely considered to be modelled after the real-life film producer Irving Thalberg, whom Fitzgerald greatly admired. The story focuses on the inner workings of the film... Read The Last Tycoon Summary
The Last Wish, by Andrzej Sapkowski, is a collection of short stories in the fantasy genre, although it borrows heavily from the folk and fairy tale tradition, as well. The collection was first published in Polish in 1993, although several stories had previously been published as part of a separate collection in 1990. Along with a series of short story collections and novels, The Last Wish is part of the Witcher saga. Subtitled Introducing the... Read The Last Wish Summary
The Light Between Oceans is Australian writer M.L. Stedman’s debut novel, published in 2012 by Random House Australia. Categorized as historical fiction, the novel won various accolades, such as the Indie Book Awards Book of the Year in 2013. A film adaptation of The Light Between Oceans was released four years after the novel’s publication in 2016. All citations in this guide are based on the 2012 Scribner edition, accessed via Scribd.com.Plot SummaryIn 1918, after... Read The Light Between Oceans Summary
The Luminaries (2013) by Eleanor Catton is historical fiction written in the style of a 19th-century serial novel. It is set during the gold rush on the South Island of New Zealand in the 1860s. A whodunit told using two overlapping timelines and extensive flashbacks, it deploys motifs of astrology to paint a detailed portrait of class, gender, and conflict on the colonial frontier. The novel won the Man Booker Prize in 2013; at the... Read The Luminaries Summary
Mitch Albom’s 2015 novel, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, blends magical realism with historical fiction to create a genre-bending work that is accessible for a wide range of audiences; however, given the complex themes of love, loss, regret, and redemption, the novel is best suited for a young adult audience and older.A personification of music, “Music,” narrates much of the novel. The novel starts at Frankie’s funeral and is interspersed with anecdotes from famous... Read The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto Summary
The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history novel by American science fiction author Philip K. Dick. Released in 1962, the novel imagines a different world in which Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan defeated the United States of American and the Allied forces in World War II. The highly-praised novel was adapted for a television series. This guide uses an eBook version of the 2017 Open Court edition of The Man in the... Read The Man In The High Castle Summary
The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character (1886) is a novel by Thomas Hardy. Taking place in a fictional town in rural England sometime in the 1840s, the story follows young hay trusser Michael Henchard as he traverses English social life and struggles to improve his standing. One of the foremost authors of the Victorian period, Hardy is known for his psychologically and morally complex portrayals of rural English... Read The Mayor of Casterbridge Summary
The Minds of Billy Milligan (1981) is a nonfiction work by Daniel Keyes, documenting the life and experiences of William Stanley “Billy” Milligan, the first defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity because of dissociative identity disorder (DID). The book follows Milligan’s early life experiences that led to his illness, arrest, and trial after the rapes of three women on the Ohio State University campus, as well as the years he spent in different... Read The Minds of Billy Milligan Summary
“The Minority Report,” a short story by science fiction author Philip K. Dick, follows the story of Precrime Commissioner John A. Anderton as he decides whether or not he will commit the murder of a stranger, Leopold Kaplan, of which he has been accused approximately one week in advance of the event. Through this political and psychological dilemma, Dick explores the themes of predestination versus free will, the importance of personal values versus the greater... Read The Minority Report Summary
W. W. Jacobs (William Wymark Jacobs) wrote his well-known horror story “The Monkey’s Paw” in 1902. The short story is about the White family and the three wishes granted to them through an ominous monkey’s paw. The “monkey’s paw” has become part of popular culture and appeared, for example in The Simpsons television show as part of its Treehouse of Terror episodes. This guide cites the paragraphs of the Project Gutenberg version.Written in the third... Read The Monkey's Paw Summary
Richard Flanagan’s 2014 novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North won the Man Booker Prize for fiction. It is an examination of the consequences of war, regret, loneliness, adultery, and love. The book unfolds through brief chapters that span five parts and multiple decades. The experiences of the men in the WWII Japanese POW camp mirror those of Richard Flanagan’s father, who was himself a prisoner of war. Although the novel has many characters—even... Read The Narrow Road to the Deep North Summary
The Night Circus tells the story of the rivalry between two different forms of magic—the old and the new—and the competition and love affair between two young magicians who are destined to face each other in a magical duel to the death.The novel opens in 1873, as five year-old Celia Bowen is left at the office of Prospero the Entertainer, her estranged magician father, after her mother’s suicide. Though Prospero does not wish to raise... Read The Night Circus Summary
The Odyssey is a classic ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer, though “Homer” is now generally believed to refer more to an epic tradition than to a specific or single person. Scholars debate when and how the poem was composed. It seems to have come into existence contemporaneously or shortly after the adaptation of the ancient Greek alphabet, which places it in the late 8th century BC. It was most likely composed orally, and... Read The Odyssey Summary
The prolific American writer, poet, and journalist Stephen Crane is the author of “The Open Boat.” He published his short story in 1897 after surviving a shipwreck earlier in the year. To cover the brewing war between Cuba and its colonizer, Spain, Crane boarded the Commodore as 1896 turned into 1897. The ship sank, and Crane and others endured a day and a half on a tiny lifeboat. Before publishing his fictional account of the... Read The Open Boat Summary
Mary Lawson’s 2016 novel, The Other Side of the Bridge, tells the dual stories of Arthur and Ian, two men separated by a generation but in love with the same woman: Arthur’s wife, Laura.Odd-numbered chapters are told from the point-of-view of Ian Christopherson, the son of a doctor who takes a job on Arthur Dunn’s farm, chiefly to be near Laura Dunn. Even-numbered chapters follow Arthur Dunn. The older of the two Dunn brothers, Arthur... Read The Other Side of the Bridge Summary
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates (2010) is a narrative nonfiction story that chronicles the lives of two young black men who share the same name: Wes Moore. The author was inspired to write this story because of this fact and their similar start in Baltimore, Maryland. While one Wes Moore was sentenced to life in prison, the writer Wes Moore became a Rhodes Scholar and a best-selling author. Moore’s purpose in writing... Read The Other Wes Moore Summary
“The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” a short story by American author Bret Harte, showcases the customs and dialect of American Western Regionalism. As one of the first American writers to popularize Regionalism, Harte paved the way for other writers in this movement. Originally written in 1869 and published in The Overland Monthly, the literary magazine of which Harte was the pioneering editor, the story thematically employs gambling terminology to depict the choices humans face when... Read The Outcasts of Poker Flat Summary
Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Overcoat” is one of the best-known and most anthologized examples of Russian fiction. Numerous authors have cited “The Overcoat” as influencing Russian surrealism, short fiction, and satire. In 1941, the Russian American author Vladimir Nabokov referred to “The Overcoat” as “the greatest short story ever written” (Nabokov, Vladimir. “The Art of Translation.” The New Republic, 4 Aug. 1941). Likewise, one of the most famous apocryphal sayings in Russian literature (attributed... Read The Overcoat Summary
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s 2008 novel, The Palace of Illusions, is a retelling of the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata. Divakaruni is also the author of short story collection Arranged Marriage (1995) and novels Sister of My Heart (1999) and One Amazing Thing (2009). The Palace of Illusions is narrated from the point of view of Panchaali, a princess who is born from fire. Her brother, Dhri, is born this way as well. They inhabit a world... Read The Palace of Illusions Summary
The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, first published in 2014, is the debut novel by Afghan-American novelist Nadia Hashimi. Set in Kabul in 2007, it centers on a girl named Rahima and her sisters, who struggle in a family run by their drug-addicted father, Arif. With no brothers, their ability to leave the house, attend school, or earn money is limited. Rahima finds hope in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows her to... Read The Pearl That Broke Its Shell Summary
Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory (originally published in 1940) recounts the tragic story of the whisky priest. His religion has been outlawed, his faith shattered, and his history—like his name—all but erased. He’s relentlessly pursued by the lieutenant, whose secular beliefs are as passionate as others’ spiritual beliefs. The priest’s mere presence endangers those he once served, and he constantly struggles to fulfill his duty to bring comfort and absolution to others at... Read The Power and the Glory Summary
Madame de Lafayette published The Princesse de Clèves anonymously in 1678. She was acquainted with the manners of Louis XIV’s court, and she drew upon her court experiences when writing the book, adding to the book’s historical fidelity. It was a great success upon its publication. As Robin Buss (whose Penguin Classics translation provides the source for this summary) writes in her Chronology of Mme de Lafayette’s life, The Princess de Clèves started fierce speculation... Read The Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves) Summary
“The Queen of Spades” is a short story by Russian author Alexander Pushkin, first published in 1834. In the story, a young army officer becomes obsessed with learning a trick to win vast sums of money at cards. The story has been adapted into films, radio broadcasts, and operas. Many scholars consider Pushkin to be one of the greatest Russian writers and the founder of modern Russian literature. His most famous works include Eugene Onegin... Read The Queen Of Spades Summary
AbhijnanaSakuntala or The Recognition of Sakuntala is a Sanskrit play written by the playwright Kalidasa in the fifth century CE. The play follows the love story between forest-dwelling Sakuntala and the valorous king Dusyanta. When Dusyanta stumbles into a grove while on a hunt for deer, he meets the beautiful Sakuntala. Sakuntala and Dusyanta fall in love, marry in secret, and conceive a child. Called away for court business, Dusyanta promises to send for Sakuntala... Read The Recognition of Sakuntala Summary
Thomas Hardy’s novel The Return of the Native was published serially in Belgravia magazine in 1878. Its setting, the formidable and unforgiving Egdon Heath, is based on the Wessex region of England where Hardy was born. Hardy provides a map that gives the locations that his love- and grief-driven characters visit as the story unfolds. The novel explores the themes of class, chance, fate, superstition, and social upheaval. This guide references the 2008 Oxford World’s... Read The Return of the Native Summary
“The Shell Collector” (2002), a short story by American author Anthony Doerr, tells the story of an unnamed, blind shell expert living alone with his dog, Tumaini, on an isolated Kenyan island. He receives unwanted international attention after curing a local girl of malaria by exposing her to the bite of a deadly, venomous cone shell.This guide refers to the edition in the short story collection of the same name, published by Simon & Schuster... Read The Shell Collector Summary
“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway that was first published in Cosmopolitan in 1936. It explores themes of power and dominance, courage and cowardice, and the nature of masculinity. The story details a hunting party and love triangle in which a husband, a wife, and their hired huntsman struggle for dominance and power over one another. This guide references the collection The Snows of Kilimanjaro... Read The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber Summary
The Song of Achilles, author Madeline Miller’s bestselling novel, retells the events of Homer’s Iliad. Published in 2012, the book reimagines the relationship between ancient Greek Trojan war heroes Achilles and Patroclus. Narrated in the first person by Patroclus, the narrative explores themes central to ancient Greek mythology, notably the immutability of fate and the pursuit of glory.The novel begins with Patroclus narrating his birth and early childhood. Son of King Menoitius, the undersized and... Read The Song of Achilles Summary
The Son of Neptune is the second novel in Rick Riordan’s The Heroes of Olympus series. Released in 2011, this novel continues the story begun in The Lost Hero, following Percy Jackson as he stumbles into the Roman demigod camp, Camp Jupiter, after losing his memory and eight months of his life. At the camp, Percy meets Hazel, daughter of Pluto, and Frank, son of Mars. Together, Percy, Hazel, and Frank are charged with a... Read The Son of Neptune Summary
William Faulkner’s 1929 novel The Sound and the Fury relays the trials and decline of a once-prominent Southern family, the Compsons. The novel grapples with the challenges of a changing cultural landscape as modernity encroaches on the values—and deep-seated prejudices—of the Old South. Told through the perspectives of the three Compson brothers, Benjy, Quentin, and Jason, the novel visits and revisits key events in the family’s past and present. Much of the concern swirls around... Read The Sound and the Fury Summary
Erin Morgenstern, best-selling author of The Night Circus, published The Starless Sea in 2019. This work of magical realism interweaves separate stories with shared plots, themes, and characters. The book addresses ideas such as the concept of story, its meaning, and the nature of beginnings and endings, along with fate, free will, and what it means to become part of a narrative. This guide references the Knopf Doubleday first edition.Plot SummaryZachary Ezra Rawlins, an Emerging... Read The Starless Sea Summary
Jennifer E. Smith’s The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (2012) is one of nine books that she has written for young adults to date. In an interview with Buzz Magazine, Smith said, “I’m kind of obsessed with moments in time that act as hinges, days where there’s a really clear split between before and after—where yesterday, your life was one way, and tomorrow it will be entirely different” (“Author Interview: Jennifer E. Smith.”... Read The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight Summary
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (2008), American author David Wroblewski’s family epic set in 1970s rural Wisconsin, fuses elements of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet with the story of a gifted boy named Edgar who is mute. Initial critical reaction celebrated the reach of its intricate plot, its massive cast of characters, the audacity of its retelling of Hamlet, and its investigation into the dark dynamics of a dysfunctional family, particularly the complex relationship between feuding brothers... Read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle Summary
The Talisman is a 1984 novel co-written by Stephen King and Peter Straub. It is a fantasy novel with horror elements and has connections to the works in King’s Dark Tower series. The Talisman is a road trip book that tells the story of Jack Sawyer and his quest to save his mother. The Talisman examines themes of lost innocence, coming of age, friendship, the corrupting nature of power, and more.The Talisman has a sequel... Read The Talisman Summary
The Time Traveler’s Wife is a novel by Audrey Niffenegger published in 2003. It tells the love story of Clare Abshire and Henry DeTamble, revealed through their alternating perspectives in which each character is the first-person narrator. Henry was born as a with a condition that allows him to travel in time, though when and where in time he travels is out of his control. Using a non-linear plot structure, Niffenegger explores a range of... Read The Time Traveler's Wife Summary
The Twelve Caesars, often titled Lives of the Caesars in English, is a collection of 12 biographies covering Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire in historical order. It was written in 121 CE by Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars is, along with Tacitus’s Histories and the Annals and Cassius Dio’s History of Rome, one of the earliest sources that has a narrative covering political events in the Roman Empire from about... Read The Twelve Caesars Summary
The Upstairs Room (1972) is a novel based on the experiences of author Johanna Reiss as a Jewish girl during World War II. The novel follows protagonist Annie de Leeuw and her sister Sini as they hide from the Nazis during the German occupation of Holland. Annie’s story, which is told from her first-person perspective, celebrates human resilience and compassion while exploring themes concerning the loss of childhood innocence, the sacrifices people make during wartime... Read The Upstairs Room Summary
C. S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a fantasy novel for children originally published in 1952 as the third installment of The Chronicles of Narnia series. However, because recent editions of the series tend to number the books in chronological order of storytelling rather than the original order of publication, it is most often counted as the fifth volume in modern printings. The Chronicles of Narnia includes seven novels: The Lion, the... Read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Summary
The Whale Rider is a 1987 novel by New Zealand author Witi Ihimaera. A film adaptation was made in 2002 that would go on to win several awards. Throughout the novel, Ihimaera juxtaposes the migration of a herd of whales with the Maori tribe’s search for a male heir. The Whale Rider comprises four major sections, as well as a prologue, epilogue, and glossary. Each section of text is named after one of the seasons... Read The Whale Rider Summary
The novel Thousand Cranes (in Japanese, Senbazuru) was written by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata. It was originally published in serialized form between 1949 and 1951 and compiled with another of Kawabata’s novels, Snow Country (1948), in book form in 1952. The narrative follows Kikuji, an orphaned young businessman, as he navigates the legacy of his father’s infidelity against the backdrop of traditional Japanese tea culture. It explores themes of Decay of Traditions and Values, Legacy:... Read Thousand Cranes Summary
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None is a work of fiction written by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Published between 1883 and 1885, the allegorical novel also known as Thus Spake Zarathustra is a collection of speeches by a character named Zarathustra to the villagers of The Motley Cow. Nietzsche uses many literary devices such as personification, allegory, and allusion. The philosophical points referenced in Thus Spoke Zarathustra include the death of... Read Thus Spoke Zarathustra Summary
Touching the Void is a 1988 memoir by British author Joe Simpson. The book recounts the disastrous, near-fatal attempt of Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, to ascend the West Face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. The book details Simpson’s harrowing ordeal, in which he broke his leg and fell into a crevasse, and how he survived against seemingly insurmountable odds.Simpson’s narrative highlights the resilience of the human spirit and explores the... Read Touching the Void Summary
Trojan Women is a tragic play written by the ancient Athenian playwright Euripides. It was first performed in Athens in 415 BC, as part of a trilogy of plays depicting the legendary kingdom of Troy: the other two, now lost, were called Alexandros (about the Trojan prince Paris) and Palamedes (about the Greek hero Palamedes during the Trojan War). Trojan Women takes place in the immediate aftermath of Troy’s defeat, which ended the ten-year Trojan... Read Trojan Women Summary
White Teeth is an award-winning novel by Zadie Smith, published in 2000. The novel, which was developed into a four-part miniseries for British audiences in 2002, follows two men from different backgrounds who meet and become friends during World War II.Plot SummaryWhite Teeth opens on New Year’s Day, 1975, with the attempted suicide of a middle-aged Englishman named Archie Jones. Following his failed marriage, and in despairing of his generally mundane existence, Archie flipped a... Read White Teeth Summary
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995) by Gregory Maguire reimagines the central antagonist of the iconic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was published in 1900 by author L. Frank Baum and became central to American popular culture through the 1939 film adaptation starring Judy Garland. Allusions to the original story recur throughout film, television, and novels. Decades later, expressions like “we’re not in Kansas anymore” or... Read Wicked Summary
Woman at Point Zero, also titled Firdaus, is a 1975 novella by Nawal El Saadawi based on the true account of a woman named Firdaus who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1974. Saadawi was a prolific Egyptian feminist and physician, and she worked with Egyptian women who experienced various mental conditions that Saadawi saw largely as resulting from living in a patriarchal society. She had the privilege of meeting Firdaus on... Read Woman at Point Zero Summary
Women of Trachis is a classical Greek tragedy composed by Sophocles (circa 496-406 BCE). The play’s precise dating is unknown, but it is believed to have been produced sometime during the 440s, among Sophocles’ earliest surviving plays, and to have been performed at the City Festival of Dionysus, held in March in Athens. The play itself subverts traditional heroic themes, notably the homecoming hero, the unknowability of the gods, and the importance of pity.Sophocles is... Read Women of Trachis Summary
Wool, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, is Hugh Howey’s first book. Originally self-published in 2011 as an e-book, Simon & Schuster later licensed it. The e-book features illustrations by Jimmy Broxton and Darwyn Cooke. Wool is the first book in Howey's Silo series, followed by Shift (2013) and Dust (2013).Wool takes place in the world of the silo, a 144-floor underground community of humans, hundreds of years after an unknown event has caused the air... Read Wool Summary
Written in 2014 and published by Delacorte Press, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood is the eighth book in the Outlander saga by author Diana Gabaldon. The series follows Claire Fraser, a time-traveling World War II nurse who married Jamie Fraser, an 18th-century Highlander and insurrectionist against the British crown. The Fraser family occupies multiple timelines in the series, which celebrates family and romantic love. The novel spans colonial America to the Highlands of Scotland... Read Written in My Own Heart's Blood Summary
