Originally published in 2009, Andrew Peterson’s North! Or Be Eaten is the second installment in the award-winning four-book fantasy series, The Wingfeather Saga. The novel continues the story of the Igiby siblings—Janner, Kalmar (Tink), and Leeli—who, having discovered that they are the lost royal heirs of the fallen kingdom of Anniera, are forced to flee the monstrous, lizard-like Fangs of Dang, who seek to destroy them. To survive, the Igiby family must undertake a perilous... Read North! Or Be Eaten Summary

NOS4A2 is a 2013 horror novel by author Joe Hill. It tells the story of Victoria (Vic) McQueen’s years-long struggle against the child killer Charles Manx. Hill—the son of author Stephen King—uses the novel to explore themes of parenthood, alternate realities, resilience, and forgiveness.Content Warning: This guide and the source material reference child abduction and endangerment, as well as domestic violence.Plot SummaryThe story jumps between timelines, but it begins in 2008, as the 85-year-old Charles... Read NOS4A2 Summary

No Sugar is a four-act play written by Jack Davis, an Aboriginal playwright born in 1917. It is the story of an Aboriginal family’s struggles for dignity, equality, and justice during the Australian depression of the 1930s. It has much in common with other literary touchstones of activism, such as John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, and more. Like Steinbeck’s novel, No Sugar centers on a particular family and their... Read No Sugar Summary

“No Sweetness here” is a short story by Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo. Originally published in the 12th issue of the Nigerian literary magazine Black Orpheus in 1964, the story was later included in Aidoo’s 1969 short story collection No Sweetness Here.This guide refers to the 1995 Feminist Press edition of the collection.Aidoo writes primarily in the genre of social realism: Her stories seek to capture the texture of daily life in her native Ghana... Read No Sweetness Here Summary

Shari Lapena’s murder mystery Not a Happy Family (2021) is a psychological thriller about a rich couple who are murdered, leaving their contentious and paranoid grown children as the primary suspects. Much as with Lapena’s seven previous mysteries, Not a Happy Family became an immediate international best-seller, hailed for its deft manipulation of murder mystery elements that recall the intricate architecture of the classic works by Agatha Christie. Other works by Lapena include The Couple... Read Not a Happy Family Summary

Not an Easy Win (2023) is a middle grade novel by Chrystal D. Giles. It tells the story of 12-year-old Lawrence, who is expelled from his mostly white middle school for fighting. With his mother working overnight shifts, his father in prison after a questionable traffic stop, and his grandmother trying to keep his family together, Lawrence starts going to the local rec center with their neighbor. There, he learns how to play chess, which... Read Not an Easy Win Summary

Scott Galloway’s Notes on Being A Man (2025) is a hybrid memoir and work of social commentary that examines the challenges facing boys and men in contemporary America. Weaving personal narrative with data-driven analysis, Galloway uses his life story, from a middle-class California childhood with a single mother to his career as an entrepreneur and professor, to explore what he diagnoses as a crisis of masculinity. He argues that a confluence of economic, social, and... Read Notes on Being a Man Summary

Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance (2022) is a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel, by American author and creative writing professor Alison Espach. The book was named a Best Book of 2022 by NPR, a USA Today Must-Read, and an Indie Next pick. Espach’s previous novel, The Adults, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Set in a Connecticut suburb in the 1990s, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance is narrated by Sally Holt, who recounts nearly two... Read Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance Summary

Nothing to See Here is a 2019 novel by New York Times best-selling author and short story writer Kevin Wilson. The novel, which is set in Tennessee, includes a dedication to fellow Tennessean writer Ann Patchett. This is not Wilson’s first work about unusual characters and their families. He achieved success with his first novel, The Family Fang, and another called Perfect Little World. In these works, Wilson developed the prototype for the unique brand... Read Nothing to See Here Summary

Written in 2024, Not in Love is Ali Hazelwood’s fifth contemporary adult romance novel and follows the contradictory interactions of Rue, a brilliant but socially awkward engineer, and Eli, a cofounder of the private equity firm that is trying to take over Kline, the company that employs Rue. Although the two are attracted to each other, Rue feels that indulging in a romantic relationship with Eli is tantamount to showing disloyalty to Kline’s CEO, Florence... Read Not in Love Summary

Not Quite Dead Yet (2025) is a mystery thriller novel by British author Holly Jackson. Known for her young adult books, Jackson is the author of the best-selling A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder trilogy and stand-alone novels Five Survive (2022) and The Reappearance of Rachel Price (2024). Not Quite Dead Yet, her first adult novel, follows the last seven days in the life of Jet Mason, a 27-year-old woman attacked by an unknown assailant... Read Not Quite Dead Yet Summary

Not Without My Daughter is an autobiographical novel written by Betty Mahmoody in collaboration with William Hoffer. The book was published in 1987 and soon became a bestseller, and it was ultimately nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Following the structure of a traditional American captivity narrative, the novel focuses on the personal account of Betty Mahmoody, whose first-person narrative describes her experience as an American woman trapped in Iran due to her Iranian husband’s coercive... Read Not Without My Daughter Summary

November 9 is a novel by bestselling author Colleen Hoover. Published in 2015 by Atria, this novel follows the unusual love story between Fallon O’Neil and Ben Kessler. After meeting by chance, these two strangers agree to meet once a year in an experiment that fills their lives with a confidence they both lack—and a novel-in-progress written by Ben. Tragedy and an unspoken truth threaten to tear them apart, but the experiment results in a... Read November 9 Summary

Nowhere Boy is 2018 a young adult novel by Katherine Marsh set in Brussels, Belgium, in 2015-2016. The chapters alternate between the perspectives of Ahmed Nasser, a 14-year-old Syrian refugee, and Max Howard, a 13-year-old American dealing with homesickness and culture shock. When Max discovers Ahmed living in the basement of the Howards’ home, the boys develop a friendship despite a general climate of fear and the threat of discovery by the authorities. Ahmed’s resilience... Read Nowhere Boy Summary

Now I Surrender (2024) is a historical novel by the acclaimed Mexican author Álvaro Enrigue. A work of autofiction and a revisionist Western, the novel weaves together three distinct timelines to explore the brutal history of the American Southwest. The narrative is framed by the reflections of a contemporary Mexican writer on a family road trip through the former territory of Apachería, a research journey for a book about the Apache Wars. This modern pilgrimage... Read Now I Surrender Summary

Originally published in 2002, Numbering All the Bones is historical fiction for middle-grade readers. The novel is written by New York author Ann Rinaldi, who died at age 86 in July 2021. The novel tells the story of the changes in Eulinda’s life as the Civil War ends in the mid-1860s and she is no longer enslaved. Pond Bluff, the plantation where Eulinda lives, is adjacent to Andersonville Confederate Prison.During the last 18 months of... Read Numbering all the Bones Summary

“October in the Chair” by Neil Gaiman is a supernatural short story published in his 2006 collection Fragile Things. The story won the 2003 Locus Award for Best Short Story, and the collection won the 2007 Locus Award for Best Collection. Along with earning these awards, Gaiman is a widely read, critically acclaimed author of comics, short stories, novels, and screenplays, mostly in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. Other works by this author... Read October in the Chair Summary

Odd and the Frost Giants is a 2008 novella by acclaimed fantasy author Neil Gaiman, illustrated by New York Times bestselling artist Chris Riddell. Odd and the Frost Giants was originally released for World Book Day in Great Britain, an annual event where children’s books are released at low prices to encourage reading. Neil Gaiman has written many other notable works of fantasy, including adult novels like Stardust and American Gods and children’s novels like... Read Odd and the Frost Giants Summary

Oedipus by Seneca is a play written sometime during the first century CE. Oedipus is a fabula crepidata, or a Roman tragedy with traditional Greek subject matter. The earliest written account of any part of the Oedipus myth is in Homer’s Odyssey. In the epic, Homer briefly summarizes the story of Oedipus and the prophecy, but his retelling ends with Oedipus remaining king, not blind or sent into exile. The most well-known dramatization of this... Read Oedipus 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