Books & Literature

... Read A Defence of Poetry Summary

The death of the young has been a thematic concern in literature since Antiquity. That untimely demise not only exposes human vulnerability but makes for melancholic contemplation over the waste of beauty, confidence, and youth’s energy. And when that person is an artist, still young and learning, the implications seem more tragic. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Adonais” (1821) is at one level a contemplation of the sudden death in 1821 of fellow poet John Keats. Keats... Read Adonais Summary

... Read Against Interpretation Summary

... Read A History Of Wild Places Summary

A House for Mr. Biswas is a 1961 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. This guide is written using an eBook version of the 2001... Read A House for Mr. Biswas Summary

A Moveable Feast was written by Ernest Hemingway and published posthumously in 1964, three years after his death. The title, A Moveable Feast, is a play on the term used for holy days that do not consistently fall on the same date every year. The memoir’s structure mirrors this concept, featuring 20 separate yet related stories that make up Hemingway’s own collection of inconsistent holy days. The memoir blends fact with fiction as Hemingway recalls... Read A Moveable Feast Summary

... Read An Essay of Dramatic Poesy Summary

... Read An Essay on Criticism Summary

Arcadia by Tom Stoppard was first performed on April 13, 1993, at the Royal National Theatre in London. In 2006, the Royal Institution of Great Britain named it one of the best science-related works ever written.The play has dual plot lines, one historical and one modern, which share the same physical setting. In the 19th century, the play follows the young Thomasina, a mathematical genius far ahead of her time, and her tutor, Septimus Hodge... Read Arcadia Summary

... Read Are Prisons Obsolete? Summary

... Read Ariadne Summary

... Read A River Enchanted Summary

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, first published in 1929, is a book-length essay that Woolf modeled after a series of her at the University of Cambridge. A Room of One’s Own is considered an exemplary piece of modernist criticism that questions traditional values. It examines the topic of “women and fiction”–women characters in fiction; the great women authors in English history who wrote fiction; and, more abstractly, “the fiction that is written... Read A Room of One's Own Summary

... Read Ars Poetica Summary

... Read Ars Poetica? Summary

... Read A Scatter Of Light Summary

... Read A Snicker of Magic Summary

“A Supermarket in California” is a prose poem by the American poet Allen Ginsberg. Written in 1955, it appears alongside Ginsberg’s most well-known work, “Howl,” in his book Howl and Other Poems. Published November 1, 1956 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books as part of their Pocket Poets Series, Howl and Other Poems was subject to an obscenity trial in 1957 due to its use of sexually explicit language. The trial eventually ruled in the... Read A Supermarket in California Summary

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (1997) is a collection of seven non-fiction essays by American author David Foster Wallace. The subjects Wallace covers range from competitive tennis, the works of director David Lynch, and a Caribbean cruise, the experience of which serves as the basis for the book's title essay. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again "should serve as a model for anyone writing cultural comment" (Publishers Weekly).In the first... Read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again Summary

... Read A Swim in a Pond in the Rain Summary

... Read A Thousand Ships Summary

... Read At Swim-Two-Birds Summary

... Read Attack Of The Black Rectangles Summary

... Read A Valediction Forbidding Mourning Summary

... Read A Vision Summary

Bad Feminist is a collection of essays from writer, scholar, and social critic Roxane Gay. Published in 2014 by Harper Perennial, the New York Times best seller draws together an array of topics, from pop culture to literary discourse to political legislation to personal recollections, in an analysis of society, culture, and politics. Gay tackles modern patriarchy and racism in ways that emphasize the humanity of marginalized people and how those systems of oppression deny... Read Bad Feminist Summary

... Read Ban This Book Summary

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life is a 2015 memoir by William Finnegan, a writer for The New Yorker and the author of several social journalism books such as A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique and Dateline Soweto: Travels with Black South African Reporters. In Barbarian Days, Finnegan reflects on his upbringing in California and Hawaii, as well as his coming of age in the late 1960s. He relays his experience of the surfing counterculture... Read Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life Summary

... Read Beach Read Summary

... Read Beautiful World, Where Are You Summary

... Read Becoming Mrs. Lewis Summary

The autobiography of Cuban novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls, details his life as a gay man under Fidel Castro’s regime and the consequences of his dissidence. It was published posthumously in 1993. Immediately named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, it has since been adapted into a movie and, later, an opera. Before Night Falls tells the story of Arenas’s life growing up in a... Read Before Night Falls Summary

... Read Billy Summers Summary

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott was originally published in 1994. Many of Lamott’s books have been on the New York Times bestsellers list, which qualifies her to offer advice about how to write. She also taught at writing conferences and at UC Davis, received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was inducted into the California Hall of Fame. Bird by Bird is a combination of memoir, self-help book, and writing... Read Bird By Bird Summary

... Read Blackberry Eating Summary

... Read Blackout Summary

... Read Bob Summary

... Read Book Lovers Summary

... Read Borges and I Summary

... Read Bridge of Clay Summary

Bronx Masquerade (2002), a young adult novel by African-American author Nikki Grimes, focuses on the kids in an inner-city English class run by Mr. Ward. When a student Wesley Boone writes a poem to read aloud in class, some of his classmates follow suit, and the classroom becomes an exercise in self-revelation as the power of poetry allows these struggling teenagers to reveal their personal demons. “Open Mike Friday” becomes a tradition in the class... Read Bronx Masquerade Summary

... Read B. Wordsworth Summary

Camino Island, by John Grisham, is the first book in his new Camino series, published in 2017 by Anchor. The novel is a departure from the legal thrillers that Grisham is known for, and he did his first book tour in years in order to promote it. Grisham’s career began in 1989 with his debut novel, A Time to Kill, and since then, his novels have been translated into nearly 50 languages. He boasts 47... Read Camino Island Summary

... Read Christmas In Camelot Summary

E. L. Doctorow’s 2000 novel City of God is a postmodern, metafictional novel of religious questioning that attempts to reconcile the history of the 20th century, particularly the Holocaust, with modern conceptions of morality and God. The novel is structured as a fragmented writer’s notebook written by a character loosely based on Doctorow himself. The plot, which concerns a stolen cross and an Episcopalian priest’s doubts about his faith, is rendered through the mediated lens... Read City of God Summary

... Read City Spies Summary

... Read Cloud Cuckoo Land Summary

... Read Continuity of Parks Summary

... Read Crome Yellow Summary

... Read Crossed Summary

Culture and Imperialism is a nonfiction book published in 1993 by the Palestinian American author and academic Edward Said. Originating from a series of lectures that Said delivered in 1985 and 1986, Culture and Imperialism is an expansion of the ideas set out in his groundbreaking earlier work, Orientalism. Considered one of the founders of the field of post-colonial studies, Said looks at how the formerly colonized margins influence the metropolitan centers, and vice versa... Read Culture and Imperialism Summary

Cyrano de Bergerac: An Heroic Comedy in Five Acts by Edmond Rostand was originally published in 1898. Rostand was a popular poet and playwright in France during his lifetime. Cyrano de Bergerac is a five-act verse drama—a tragic romance, set in France in the mid-1600s. It was far more popular than all of Rostand’s other works and has been performed and adapted countless times since its initial successful run.Cyrano de Bergerac explores themes of Unrequited... Read Cyrano de Bergerac Summary

IntroductionN. H. Kleinbaum’s Dead Poets Society is a 1989 novel based on the motion picture written by Tom Schulman. The novel was released as a companion piece to the wildly popular film—also titled Dead Poets Society and released in 1989— which starred famous actors such as Robin Williams as Mr. Keating, and Ethan Hawke as Todd Anderson. The film scored high with critics, winning the Oscar in 1990 for Best Original Screenplay and receiving nominations... Read Dead Poets Society Summary

Harryette Mullen’s “Dim Lady” may remind some readers of 17th century English playwright and poet William Shakespeare’s well-known “Sonnet 130,” in which the speaker of the poem makes a mockery of his beloved’s physical appearance. During Shakespeare’s time, fashion encouraged poets to write flowery poetry that extolled the virtues and the beauty of their beloved. However, the speaker of this sonnet toys with poetic conventions of the time, describing the physical attributes of the speaker’s... Read Dim Lady Summary

... Read Eight Perfect Murders Summary

... Read Either Or Summary

Ellen Foster is a work of adult fiction by US novelist Kaye Gibbons, first published by Algonquin Books in 1987. The novel was Gibbons’s debut, and it won the Sue Kaufman Prize for literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a notable citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. Critics praised the novel for its unsentimental outlook and the wry, distinct voice of its protagonist. Ellen, a young girl living in the American... Read Ellen Foster Summary

... Read Epilogue Summary

... Read Erasure Summary

... Read Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library Summary

... Read Eternal Summary

... Read Everything's an Argument Summary

The publication of American novelist Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in 1953 helped to transition the science fiction genre from the niche arena of pulp magazines and comic books to mainstream fiction. The futuristic novel takes place in a culture that has banned books. Time and place (probably Midwestern America) are unidentified, but the country is on the brink of war with an unnamed foe. “The Hearth and the Salamander,” “The Sieve and the Sand,” and... Read Fahrenheit 451 Summary

Fangirl is a 2013 contemporary young adult novel by Rainbow Rowell. Rowell is an award-winning author whose novels depict relatable struggles in the contemporary world. Her most acclaimed contemporary young adult novels, Fangirl and Eleanor & Park, and her most acclaimed adult novel, Landline, are all set in and around her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. Fangirl follows 18-year-old Cath Avery as she navigates identity, family, and romantic struggles in her first year at college. Her... Read Fangirl Summary

... Read Father Comes Home From the Wars Summary

... Read Fellowship Point Summary

... Read Finders Keepers Summary

... Read Finding Dorothy Summary

Finding Langston, Lesa Cline-Ransome’s debut novel for middle-grade readers, is the story of an 11-year-old boy named Langston who loses his home but finds himself. The book received numerous accolades following its publication in 2018, including the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. In 2020 Cline-Ransome published Leaving Lymon, a companion novel to Finding Langston that tells the story of Langston’s bully Lymon. This study guide refers to the 2018 Holiday House edition.Plot SummaryFinding Langston... Read Finding Langston Summary

... Read Flights Summary

Foe is a 1986 novel by J. M. Coetzee. Foe is a parallel novel, reimagining the story of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe from the perspective of a shipwrecked woman named Susan Barton, who then tries to convince a fictionalized version of Defoe to write her story. This guide refers to the 2015 Penguin edition. Content Warning: The source material uses outdated, offensive terms for Black people throughout, which is replicated in this guide... Read Foe Summary

Frindle is a 1996 middle grade novel by children’s author Andrew Clements and illustrated by Brian Selznick. The story follows a fifth-grade boy named Nick Allen who—both for fun and to exasperate his strict language arts teacher who has a special reverence for vocabulary—creates a new word for pen: “frindle.” Nick’s new word captures more attention than he expected, and soon the town and nation engage in a controversy surrounding how people ought to use... Read Frindle Summary

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) is a graphic novel memoir written and illustrated by underground cartoonist Alison Bechdel. The book centers on Bechdel’s relationship with her late father Bruce Allen Bechdel, who died in what she believes was a death by suicide. Fun Home is a non-linear narrative that rehashes events from Alison Bechdel’s youth and adolescence. Her memories are presented in the comic panels, overlayed with her prosaic, retrospective musings in text boxes... Read Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Summary

Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books by Gary Paulsen is a 2001 nonfiction work covering the events that inspired the author to write Hatchet, a 1986 survival bildungsroman and Newbery Medal winner listed among the top 100 children’s books of all time by School Library Journal (“School Library Journal Top 100 Children’s Novels, 2012 Poll.” Library Thing). The award-winning novel follows Brian Robeson as he survives alone in the remote Canadian... Read Guts Summary

... Read Hag-Seed Summary

... Read Hamilton Summary

Haroun and the Sea of Stories is a 1990 book for young adults, written by Salman Rushdie. Haroun is the follow-up to Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, which was deemed blasphemous by the Ayatollah (a high-ranking Iranian clergyman) at the time, who pronounced a death sentence on the author. As a response to the ayatollah’s decree, Haroun explores themes of free speech, the need for storytelling, and the value of fiction.Plot SummaryThe novel begins with... Read Haroun and the Sea of Stories Summary

... Read Hate That Cat Summary

Swiss author Johanna Spyri originally published the middle-grade fiction novel Heidi in German in two volumes in 1880. The novel quickly became a beloved classic children’s book that has since been adapted into 25 film and television versions, including a 1968 made-for-TV movie and a very popular anime series in 1974. It has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide. Spyri was born in Hirzel, a Zurich village that shares a border with the German... Read Heidi Summary

... Read Hell of a Book Summary

High Tide in Tucson is a series of essays by heralded American novelist Barbara Kingsolver, collected and published in 1995. The essays are wide-ranging in subject matter, addressing topics from politics, to nature, to midcentury domestic life, but all reflect Kingsolver’s observations about herself and the people around her. Prior to her writing career, Kingsolver had a wide range of other professional experiences that influence essays in the book.Most of the essays in High Tide... Read High Tide in Tucson Summary

... Read Homecoming Summary

Homeless Bird, a 2000 novel by Gloria Whelan, was a New York Times bestseller and won a National Book Award. The novel focuses on Koly, a young teenager growing up in India. Koly struggles with her desire to do something with her life, while her family expects her to marry young. She lacks control in her life, something most teens can relate to, although not always on such a scale. Koly is a strong protagonist... Read Homeless Bird Summary

... Read How Late It Was, How Late Summary

... Read How Should One Read a Book? Summary

... Read How to Become a Writer Summary

... Read How to Read a Book Summary

Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines is a nonfiction book that aims to teach readers how to improve their reading skills. Foster, a longtime university professor, focuses on techniques that enable readers to puzzle out some of the deeper meanings of a story that exist below the surface level of the plot. Harper published the book in 2003, and the 2014... Read How To Read Literature Like A Professor Summary

... Read How to Read Poetry Like a Professor Summary

Along with his contemporary Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser is one of the most important literary figures from the English Renaissance (c. 1550-1660), also known as the Early Modern Period. Spenser’s work was greatly influenced by his studies of Classical and Italian Renaissance poets, including Virgil, Ludovico Ariosto, and Torquato Tasso. His faith and study of Christianity also informed his work. With Sidney, who was also an influence, and his friend Gabriel Harvey, Spenser belonged to... Read Iambicum Trimetrum Summary

Originally published in 2002, Markus Zusak’s I Am the Messenger is a young adult realistic fiction novel. Ed Kennedy, the protagonist and narrator, is a 19-year-old cab driver whose average life takes an unexpected turn when he stops a bank robber. After this moment of heroism, he begins receiving mysterious playing cards with cryptic messages that lead him to people in need of his assistance. The novel is set in suburban Sydney and draws on... Read I Am The Messenger Summary

If on a winter’s night a traveler is a 1979 postmodernist novel by Italo Calvino. The dual narrative is composed of two parallel strands: numbered chapters in which the narrator directly describes to the audience the process of reading the book, and titled chapters constructed from hypothetical first chapters of various books that the audience is reading. The innovative novel has been praised by critics and hailed as highly influential.This guide uses the 1998 Vintage... Read If on a Winter's Night a Traveler Summary

... Read If We Were Villains Summary

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is an autobiographical novel by Maya Angelou. Angelou discusses the struggles of growing up African American in the 1950s. The novel has themes of overcoming adversity and trauma, both used as a general metaphor for the struggle against racism. Angelou wrote the novel as a challenge to create literature out of an autobiography, and what emerged is a classic that is still revered today.The novel begins on a... Read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings Summary

... Read I Lost My Talk Summary

... Read Indecent Summary

Inferno by Dan Brown is the fourth installment in Brown’s Robert Langdon series of mystery/thriller novels, following (in order) Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol, and preceding Origin. Each edition covers a self-contained story, so readers need not follow the series in order, and often includes themes centered on European and Christian history and cultural traditions. The title character, Robert Langdon, is the only recurring character. Inferno won the Goodreads... Read Inferno Summary

... Read Ink Blood Sister Scribe Summary

... Read In This Place (An American Lyric) Summary

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (1923-1985) was originally published in 1972 in Italian and translated into English in 1974. Calvino’s ninth novel, it received a Nebula Novel Award nomination in 1975.According to New York Times reviewer Joseph McElroy, Calvino already had the reputation of being Italy’s “most original storyteller” for his use of fantastical and fabulist motifs to explore philosophical and scientific themes such as evolution (McElroy). Invisible Cities continues this trend by using the... Read Invisible Cities Summary

... Read Ion Summary

... Read Ivy Day in the Committee Room Summary

... Read Killing Mr. Griffin Summary

... Read Last Bus To Wisdom Summary

... Read Lavinia Summary

Letters to a Young Poet is a collection of 10 letters written by the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke to Franz Xaver Kappus, from February 1903 to December 1908. In an introduction to the book, Kappus describes how he came to begin his correspondence with Rilke. At the time, Kappus was a 19-year-old student at an Austrian military school. Though Kappus was set to become a military officer, he held aspirations of instead becoming a... Read Letters to a Young Poet Summary

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk is a 2017 historical novel by Kathleen Rooney. The story is loosely based on the life of the American writer Margaret Fishback who published well-received poems and short stories from the 1920s until the 1960s.Lillian Boxfish admires her aunt Sadie, an independent woman with a successful career in New York City. However, Lillian’s mother disapproves of Sadie because she does not lead a conventional life. When Lillian is older and... Read Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk Summary

... Read Litany Summary

Lost Horizon by James Hilton is a utopian novel that introduces the fictional setting of Shangri-La, which would feature in several later utopian works of fiction by other writers. Originally published in 1933, the book was adapted for the screen in 1937 and 1973, as well as for television in 1997. The novel won the Hawthornden Prize, a cash prize awarded for imaginative fiction, and it became an international bestseller under Pocket Books, sometimes credited... Read Lost Horizon Summary

Love That Dog is a Newbery Award-winning middle grade book by Sharon Creech. Published in 2001, the book combines comedy and tragedy in detailing young Jack’s journey to loving poetry—a journey that takes form via free verse journal entries. Though Jack initially scoffs at the idea of writing poems, he later learns the value of his own voice. This guide refers to the 2002 Bloomsbury Children’s Books paperback edition.Plot SummaryJack, a student in Miss Stretchberry’s... Read Love That Dog Summary

During his lifetime, John Dryden (1631-1700) was an esteemed poet, literary critic, and playwright. His influence was so large that the literary period after the Restoration of Charles II is sometimes called the “Age of Dryden.” Dryden’s literary abilities were recognized by the Stuart Monarchy in 1668 when he was made England’s first Poet Laureate. In addition to his role as Poet Laureate, Dryden is best remembered for his refinement of English verse, his development of... Read Mac Flecknoe Summary

... Read Mañanaland Summary

... Read Manifestoes of Surrealism 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

Roald Dahl’s 1998 children’s fantasy Matilda tells the darkly humorous story of a brilliant and kindly little girl who reads grown-up books, plays pranks on her emotionally abusive parents, and uses her telekinetic ability in her battles with a tyrannical school principal. Dahl is widely considered one the greatest children’s storytellers. His books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide; they include Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG... Read Matilda Summary

Published in 1998, Rodman Philbrick’s Max the Mighty is a novel for middle grade and young adult readers. The sequel to the award-winning book Freak the Mighty, it continues the story of Max Kane, a giant of a 14-year-old who rescues book-loving schoolmate Rachel from her abusive stepfather, after which she and Max go on the run from the authorities. Max the Mighty won a place on the National Council of Teachers of English annual... Read Max the Mighty Summary

Middlesex is a 2002 novel by Jeffrey Eugenides that tells a multigenerational, epic tale of a Greek family who immigrates to the US. The narrator, Calliope (or Cal) tells the story of how his grandparents, Lefty and Desdemona Stephanides, flee their homeland during a time of war and uncertainty, settling in the US. They harbor a family secret that changes the course of the narrator’s life: They’re brother and sister, and carry a genetic mutation... Read Middlesex Summary

... Read Mimesis Summary

... Read Modern Fiction Summary

Moon Over Manifest is a 2010 novel by author Claire Vanderpool. It relates the story of 12-year-old Abilene Tucker, a drifting girl in search of her father, a home, and a sense of belonging. When the novel starts, her father, Gideon Tucker, has just sent Abilene to the Kansas town of Manifest, claiming that he can’t take her to Iowa, where he is allegedly taking a railroad job. It is 1936, and the Great Depression... Read Moon Over Manifest Summary

Mothering Sunday is a 2016 novella written by British author Graham Swift. Like much of Swift’s writing, it has a psychological bent, exploring the relationship between history and memory. Swift won the Booker Prize for his 2006 novel Last Orders and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. This guide uses the 2016 Scribner edition of the text.Plot SummaryIt is March 30, 1924 in the upper-middle-class house of Beechwood in Berkshire, Southern England... Read Mothering Sunday Summary

... Read Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown Summary

... Read Mr. Terupt Falls Again Summary

... Read My Brilliant Career Summary

... Read My Dark Vanessa Summary

Originally published in 1942, Mythology is primarily a compendium of Greek and Roman myths, with a brief final section on Norse mythology, written by American educator and classicist Edith Hamilton. Hamilton engages with the myths as both a storyteller and a literary critic. She organizes and retells the myths narrated in ancient sources, and she assesses those ancient sources as works of literature. Her approach is grounded in the assumptions that Greek and Roman civilizations... Read Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes Summary

... Read Nature Summary

... Read Necessities of Life Summary

No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman (Hyperion Books, 2002) is a humorous middle-grade fiction book about how one boy’s unwillingness to lie changes his life and the lives of everyone at his school. No More Dead Dogs won the 2002 Young Reader’s Choice Award (intermediate), one of many award-winners penned by Korman. Gordon Korman published his first book (This Can’t be Happening at Macdonald Hall, first in the Macdonald Hall series) when he was... Read No More Dead Dogs Summary

... Read North Summary

... Read No Two Persons Summary

... Read Of Grammatology Summary

... Read Once Upon a Broken Heart Summary

... Read One Native Life Summary

... Read On Fairy-Stories Summary

“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” is a sonnet by the English poet John Keats. It was first published in The Examiner on Dec. 1, 1816, and describes Keats’s awed reaction to Elizabethan playwright George Chapman’s startling translations of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey. Keats’s lyric poem is informed by the Romanticism movement, of which he became a chief practitioner in its late form, despite his brief life.The poem is the most famous of... Read On First Looking into Chapman's Homer Summary

On Liberty is a philosophical essay on ethics, society, and politics published in 1859 by the English philosopher John Stuart Mill. His work on the subject matter extended back several years, through an illustrious career as a politician and philosopher. Mill’s ideas center on the concept of utilitarianism, which emphasizes efficiency and collective well-being. The book remains in print in the 21st century.SummaryOn Liberty is divided into five chapters: an introduction; “On the liberty of... Read On Liberty Summary

On the Devil’s Court is a novel aimed at teenage boys that follows 17-year-old Joe Faust through the basketball season of his senior year. Written by Carl Deuker, the book was originally published in 1988 and has remained a popular print title for more than 30 years. On the Devil’s Court was the first of three young adult sports novels by Deuker to be included among the Authors League of America Best Books for Young... Read On the Devil's Court Summary

On the Sublime is a treatise on aesthetics and literary criticism originally written in Greek between the first and third centuries AD. The author is not definitively known, but the text is typically credited with the name Longinus. Although the work has come to be known as On the Sublime in English, its subject is advice to writers on “the essentials of a noble and impressive style.” For this reason, G. M. A. Grube translates... Read On the Sublime Summary

Orlando: A Biography is a novel published in 1928 by the English author Virginia Woolf. It tells the story of Orlando, a member of the English nobility who is born a male in 16th century England. Around the age of 30, Orlando mysteriously changes into a woman and lives for centuries without visibly aging. Author Jeanette Winterson called Orlando “the first trans novel in English.” (Winterson, Jeanette. “’Different sex. Same person’: How Woolf’s Orlando became... Read Orlando Summary

... Read Orwell's Roses Summary

... Read Other Birds Summary

... Read Our Missing Hearts Summary

Out of the Easy, written by Ruta Sepetys and published in 2013, is a young adult historical fiction novel. Sepetys is an award-winning Lithuanian American writer of young adult historical fiction. Her honors include the Carnegie Medal, awarded to one work of children’s or young adult literature per year. Her novels are international best sellers and are widely translated. Out of the Easy is about Josie, a teenage girl living in the French Quarter of... Read Out of the Easy Summary

Pale Fire is a 1962 experimental novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the author of seminal novels like Lolita and Pnin. The novel consists of a 999-line poem by a fictional poet and the accompanying notations by a fictional editor. Rather than analyze the poem, however, the notations create a new narrative. Pale Fire has been heralded as a landmark example of metafiction and one of the most important novels of the 20th century. This guide is... Read Pale Fire Summary

... Read Paterson 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

... Read Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote Summary

Poetics, written around 335 BCE, is one of the most important works of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. This guide refers to the 2013 Oxford World’s Classics edition, translated and edited by Anthony Kenny.Poetics sets out to analyze the nature and uses of poetry. To Aristotle, poetry doesn’t just mean verse but theater; the works he examines are mostly plays. While Poetics is one of the most influential works of world philosophy, it’s also incomplete:... Read Poetics Summary

... Read Powers of Horror Summary

“Preface to Lyrical Ballads” is an essay by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. In 1798 Wordsworth wrote, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads. Believing that the poems were so novel in theme and style that they required some explanation, Wordsworth wrote a prefatory essay to accompany the second edition of the poems in 1800; he then expanded the essay for the third edition of 1802. The “Preface” is often considered a... Read Preface to Lyrical Ballads Summary

... Read Reading Like a Writer Summary

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books is a memoir by Iranian American author Azar Nafisi, first released to widespread critical and popular acclaim in 2003. The memoir recalls Nafisi’s experiences living and teaching in Iran after the 1979 revolution that created the Islamic Republic of Iran, until her eventual exile in the United States in 1997. At the center of the memoir is Nafisi’s account of a secret book club she hosted during... Read Reading Lolita in Tehran Summary

IntroductionEmma Donoghue’s Room is a 2010 novel about a boy named Jack who lives in a single room with his mother, Ma. Room is a crime thriller novel that explores themes of trauma, innocence, and adaptability through the eyes of five-year-old narrator, Jack. Room has received many awards, including the ALA Alex Award, the Indies Choice Book Award for Fiction, and The New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year award. Room was... Read Room Summary

... Read Save the Cat Summary

... Read Selecting a Reader Summary

... Read She Dwelt Among The Untrodden Ways Summary

Slouching Towards Bethlehem is Joan Didion’s 1968 collection of essays that document her experiences living in California from 1961 to 1967. It is her first collection of nonfiction (many of the pieces originally appeared in The Saturday Evening Post) and is hailed as a seminal document of culture and counterculture in 1960s California. Didion’s style was part of what Tom Wolfe called “New Journalism,” which emphasized the search for meaning over the reporting of facts... Read Slouching Towards Bethlehem Summary

Snow is a novel of postmodern literary fiction published in Turkish in 2002 and in English in 2004. Snow won the Le Prix Médicis étranger award for the best foreign novel in France. The author, Orhan Pamuk, won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature and was the youngest person ever to receive this award. Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952 and grew up in Nişantaşı, Turkey. He studied architecture and journalism, only to decide... Read Snow 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

... Read Stolen Focus Summary

Stoner (1965) by John Williams is a literary fiction novel that tells the story of an average man and highlights how beautiful an average life can be. It concerns a working-class man who becomes a professor in Missouri in post–WWI America. The novel was reissued in 1972, 2003, and 2006. Stoner is an American literary classic detailing the quiet life of an academic and his love of literature. Stoner is an example of the campus... Read Stoner Summary

... Read Story 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

Sweet Tooth is a 2012 novel by Ian McEwan. Set in the 1970s, it tells the story of one woman’s involvement with MI5 and the world of literature. Themes include the balance of power, navigating lies and deceit, and conditional versus unconditional acceptance.Plot SummarySerena Frome grows up in a small, uninteresting English city. In the 1960s, her mother encourages her to study mathematics at Cambridge University even though Serena (a keen reader) would rather study... Read Sweet Tooth Summary

... Read Take the Tortillas Out of Your Poetry Summary

In her memoir, Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (2007), Palestinian-American author and poet Ibtisam Barakat describes her early childhood in Palestine during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the life-changing effects that follow this pivotal event. Combining richly descriptive prose and free-verse poetry, Ibtisam shares often painful memories of childhood losses, from her home and sense of security to her childhood innocence. Writing from a child’s perspective, Ibtisam transcends politics to poignantly highlight how... Read Tasting the Sky Summary

... Read Tell all the truth but tell it slant Summary

... Read The Absent Author Summary