The Corrections is a 2001 novel by Jonathan Franzen that won the National Book Award. Franzen is the author of several essay collections and novels, including the novels Freedom, Purity, and Crossroads. He has received many awards for his work, including the Whiting Award in 1988 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996.The main action of the novel takes place during the turn of the 21st century, a time of great financial prosperity in the United... Read The Corrections Summary

“The Country Husband,” one of John Cheever’s most anthologized short stories, is an exploration of suburban life and the struggles of its inhabitants. It won an O’Henry award in 1956 and was included in the anthology The Stories of John Cheever, which won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Using a third-person narrator, it focuses on protagonist Francis Weed’s disillusionment with his life after a near-death experience, which manifests primarily as a romantic obsession with... Read The Country Husband Summary

The Courage of Sarah Noble, written by Alice Dalgliesh and published in 1954, follows the experience of young Sarah as she accompanies her father to Connecticut. It is based on a true story that took place in 1707, though Dalgliesh admits in the “Author’s Note” that she has “had to imagine many of the details” of Sarah’s story; thus, this is a work of historical fiction and not a biography or nonfiction text.Dalgliesh was a... Read The Courage of Sarah Noble Summary

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The Crucible is a Tony Award-winning play by Arthur Miller. The play is a partially fictionalized dramatization of the Salem witch trials, which took place from February 1692 to May 1693. Premiering in 1953 at the height of the McCarthy trials, Miller wrote The Crucible as an allegory for the paranoia, fear-mongering accusations, and circumstantial evidence he witnessed. Accused of being a communist himself, Miller faced questioning by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Un-American... Read The Crucible Summary

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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 Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is a short story by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) addressing themes of time, aging, social class, and destiny. Fitzgerald is among the most celebrated American authors of the 20th century. His novels The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night, though commercial disappointments in his lifetime, are now considered classics.Remembered today primarily as a novelist, Fitzgerald was known as a short story writer for magazines by contemporary... Read The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Summary

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton is a tragicomedy of manners that explores themes of greed, ruthless ambition, progress, and gendered ideas. Wharton, who was herself a member of the New York City elite, was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, and her novels are pieces of classic American literature for their social commentary, multilayered characters, and analysis of American culture.Published in 1913, this novel can be read as... Read The Custom of the Country Summary

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Written by American author Stephen Vincent Benét, “The Devil and Daniel Webster” is a variation on the Faust myth. Benét’s story tackles themes such as The Devil in America, Patriotism and the Limits of Loyalty, and The Nature of Justice. The story first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1936, though it was later republished in Benét’s collection of stories titled Thirteen O’Clock in 1937. The story subsequently received the O. Henry Award, earning... Read The Devil and Daniel Webster Summary

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The Devil Wears Prada, published in 2004, is the debut novel of author Lauren Weisberger. It tells the tale of a hapless assistant working for a tyrannical boss in the fashion industry.The story takes place largely in present-day New York City, mostly in the offices of a high-fashion magazine called Runway. The central character, Andrea Sachs (who uses the nickname Andy), narrates the story from the first-person perspective, and the events she describes transpire over... Read The Devil Wears Prada Summary

The Diamond as Big as the Ritz is a satirical novella by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in 1922 as part of his collection Tales of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald—one of the central literary voices of the American modernist era and a chronicler of wealth, illusion, and moral dislocation—draws on his cultural insight into the excesses of the early 20th century to critique American capitalism and privilege. Blending elements of fantasy, adventure, and social satire... Read The Diamond as Big as the Ritz Summary

The Echo Maker (2006) is a psychological mystery thriller by American author Richard Powers. The novel follows protagonist Mark Schluter in the wake of an accidental brain injury that led him to believe that his sister, Karin, is an imposter. The resulting conflict leads to questions of meaning, perception, and identity. The author of 13 books as of 2023, Powers has won numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize in 2003, a National Book Award for... Read The Echo Maker Summary

Published in 1976, The Education of Little Tree is a memoir-styled work of fiction written by Forrest Carter, the pseudonym for Asa Earl Carter. The novel received some critical acclaim in the 1980s and was perceived to be the actual memoir of a child growing up in the wilds of Tennessee with his Cherokee grandparents. This premise resonated with the desire of the time to become more attuned to nature. However, the book has since... Read The Education of Little Tree Summary

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“The Enormous Radio” is a short story written by John Cheever and first published in The New Yorker in 1947. It was republished in 1953 as the eponymous story in Cheever’s The Enormous Radio and Other Stories. Cheever went on to publish five novels and eight story collections, including a seminal anthology released in 1978 as The Stories of John Cheever. This book earned him a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a National Book Critics... Read The Enormous Radio Summary