The Abduction (2011) is a middle-grade legal thriller by John Grisham and the second installment in the Theodore Boone series. The novel follows 13-year-old legal prodigy Theodore “Theo” Boone after his best friend, April Finnemore, vanishes from her bedroom in the middle of the night. While the official police investigation focuses on an escaped convict with a connection to April, Theo uses his own knowledge of the law and his community to launch an independent... Read The Abduction Summary

Anne Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist is a literary fiction novel that follows the character-driven story of Macon Leary, who must navigate life following the death of his son and the dissolution of his marriage. The Accidental Tourist was originally published in 1985 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The Accidental Tourist is Anne Tyler’s 10th novel and one of her most recognized works. This study guide follows the paperback Berkley edition released in... Read The Accidental Tourist Summary

The Address (2017) is a historical fiction work by Fiona Davis, a bestselling author whose works feature famous New York City buildings, including The Spectacular, The Magnolia Palace, The Lions of Fifth Avenue, The Dollhouse, and The Chelsea Girls. The Address is set in the Dakota, an iconic apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The text follows the lives of two female residents, living 100 years apart. Despite the century between them, their personal... Read The Address Summary

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi (2023) is a work of historical fantasy and adventure and the first of a planned trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Shannon Chakraborty; a prior trilogy comprising The City of Brass, The Kingdom of Copper, and The Empire of Gold secured Chakraborty's place among the best-known contemporary women writers of speculative fiction. The newer series focuses on a middle-aged female pirate who embarks on one last quest in the... Read The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi Summary

American writer Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel The Age Of Innocence (1920) was a post-armistice reflection on the 1870s New York society of her youth. Wharton, an American who lived abroad in Paris, was already the successful author of other novels, including The House of Mirth (1905) and Ethan Frome (1911).In a The New York Times article, Elif Batuman reflects that “eventually, each classic tells two stories: its own, and the story of all the... Read The Age of Innocence Summary

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion (2013) is a novel by Fannie Flagg. The novel spans generations and geography, from 1909 Poland to the Midwest in 1941 to 2005 Alabama, intertwining the past and present. The novel explores the life of Sookie Poole, who discovers shocking family secrets in later life, revealing her connection to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II (WWII). Her discovery leads to profound insights about her family... Read The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion Summary

Jeannette Haien’s debut novel, The All of It (1986), is a compact and philosophical literary novella set in rural Ireland. The story centers on Father Declan de Loughry, a Catholic priest whose faith and understanding are challenged by the story of his parishioner, Enda Dennehy. Following the death of Kevin Dennehy, the man the community believed to be her husband, Enda reveals their lifelong secret that they were siblings who survived a traumatic childhood together... Read The All of It Summary

Chris Bohjalian’s 2026 novel, The Amateur, is a psychological drama framed as a memoir from the author of bestsellers like The Hour of the Witch (2021) and Midwives (1997). Set in 1978, the story follows Mira Winston, a talented teenage golfer whose life changes forever when she accidentally kills a caddy with a stray shot at her wealthy suburban country club. The tragedy sends her into a spiral of guilt and self-destruction, complicated by her... Read The Amateur Summary

The Amen Corner (1954) is the first play by American author, orator, and civil rights activist James Baldwin. The play critiques Christian religion as a means of reinforcing oppression and poverty, specifically in Black communities. It also covers the rift between men and women in religious settings by examining the fall of its protagonist, a Black preacher named Margaret. Hollywood actress Juanita Moore, who was friends with Marlon Brando, asked Brando to loan $75 for... Read The Amen Corner Summary

Jay Anson’s The Amityville Horror (1977) is a purported nonfiction novel that became a major bestseller and cultural phenomenon. The book claims to be the true story of the Lutz family, who, in 1975, moved into a Long Island house where a mass murder had been committed a year earlier, only to flee in terror after 28 days of escalating supernatural events. Capitalizing on the occult revival of the 1970s, the novel explores themes of... Read The Amityville Horror Summary

Set in Monarch, Nebraska, and spanning 1992 to 2011, the story follows two intertwined lives across a decade of trauma, loss, and resilience. Each section takes place on May 1st, a date of devastating significance. The prologue shows an unnamed figure at Megan Tucker's grave, examining her driver's license and reflecting on the murder as their first kill.In 1992, Jules Delaney and Quinn Riley are eleventh-graders at Monarch High School. Jules is popular; Quinn is... Read The Anniversary Summary

Maile Meloy’s 2011 New York Times bestseller The Apothecary is the first in her young adult trilogy, which also includes The Apprentices (2014) and The After-Room (2017). This novel merges the genres of historical fiction and magical realism, and it was named one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Children’s Books of 2011. In 2012, The Apothecary also won the E. B. White Read-Aloud Award and the California Book Awards YA Gold Medal. Set in London after... Read The Apothecary Summary

The Armor of Light by Ken Follett is a 2023 historical epic set in the fictional English town of Kingsbridge at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The novel follows interconnected lives of the townsfolk as they face sweeping technological changes, class conflict, and the early rumblings of political reform. The Armor of Light is the fifth entry in the Kingsbridge series. This guide uses the 2024 Penguin edition of the novel.Content Warning: The source material... Read The Armor of Light Summary

Published in 2011, The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach is a work of literary fiction depicting the interwoven journeys of characters at Westish, a fictional small liberal arts college in Wisconsin. Henry Skrimshander is a talented baseball shortstop whose future is jeopardized by an errant throw. His development intersects with that of his teammate Schwartz; his roommate, Owen; college president Guert; and Pella, Guert’s daughter and a newly enrolled student of Westish. The novel... Read The Art of Fielding Summary

In 1998, the 14th Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) and psychiatrist Howard C. Cutler released The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living. Combining spiritual teachings and clinical framing, the book has become an example of where popular psychology, applied ethics, and secular spirituality converge. The book targets a broad audience seeking practical ways to decrease suffering, enhance interpersonal connections, and develop a more stable, compassionate mindset—regardless of whether they have a religious affiliation.A collaborative project... Read The Art of Happiness 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

Published in 2008, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a New York Times bestselling novel by Garth Stein. It follows the life of race car driver Denny Swift and is told from the perspective of his dog, Enzo. Stein was inspired to write the book after watching the 1998 Mongolian documentary State of Dogs about a dog who is reincarnated as a human after death, and after seeing the poet Billy Collins read... Read The Art of Racing in the Rain Summary

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) is an award-winning Black poet whose work over seven decades shows the evolving influence of Black liberation struggles on Black artists. “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed,” originally published in 1960 in Brooks’s The Bean-Eaters, is a narrative poem in which Rudolph Reed, a Black man who moves his family to an all-white neighborhood, dies defending his family from racists. “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” reflects Brooks’s increasing focus on matters of racial... Read The Ballad of Rudolph Reed Summary

The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories (1951) is a collection of short stories and a novella by Carson McCullers. The author, a seminal part of the Southern Gothic Literature genre, rose to fame with her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), which shares many themes with the stories in the collection. Other notable works by McCullers include the novels Reflections in a Golden Eye (1941) and The Member of... Read The Ballad of the Sad Cafe Summary

The Barbarian Nurseries is a contemporary novel set in Los Angeles and other neighborhoods in Orange County. Author Héctor Tobar is a native of Los Angeles and is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and journalist, previously writing weekly columns and acting as a foreign correspondent for the LA Times. Both this novel and his previous work of fiction focus primarily on the lives of immigrants in California. The Barbarian Nurseries was a New York Times Notable... Read The Barbarian Nurseries Summary