Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was published in 2019. Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist who advocates for women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights through her fiction. Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World examines the life of a sex worker who was murdered in Istanbul, Turkey, exploring key moments in her life while her friends desperately try to arrange her funeral. The novel investigates topics like violence against... Read 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World Summary

The 2010 nonfiction book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by economist Ha-Joon Chang comprises 23 essays that challenge the principles and beliefs of neoliberal economics, which favor unrestricted free-market economies. Written for a general audience in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the book makes the case for an expanded governmental role in the global economy but does not advocate abandoning capitalism.This guide refers to the 2010 Penguin Books edition.SummaryIn the... Read 23 Things they don't tell you about Capitalism Summary

The thriller 25 Alive (2025) by prolific author James Patterson and his long-time collaborator Maxine Paetro is the 25th installment in the popular Women’s Murder Club series, which follows a group of female justice system professionals who solve crimes in San Francisco. Patterson is known for creating enduring characters and series, including the popular Alex Cross series, and for receiving numerous accolades, including the National Humanities Medal for his literacy advocacy. In 25 Alive, homicide... Read 25 Alive Summary

Louise Penny’s A Better Man (2019) is a mystery novel and the 15th installment in her internationally bestselling Chief Inspector Gamache series. Penny, an acclaimed Canadian author, has multiple Agatha Awards and has been appointed a Member of the Order of Canada for her contributions to culture. The novel opens with Armand Gamache returning to the Sûreté du Québec after a controversial suspension. As a hostile social media campaign undermines his authority and catastrophic spring... Read A Better Man Summary

Arna Bontemps wrote “A Black Man Talks of Reaping” in the 1920s, publishing it in Countee Cullen’s anthology Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets (Harper & Row, 1927). Like Cullen, Bontemps was a part of the Harlem Renaissance, a prolific period of Black creativity that revolved around the predominantly Black neighborhood of Harlem in Manhattan, New York. Bontemps isn’t as well-known as some of the other literary figures connected to the Harlem... Read A Black Man Talks of Reaping Summary

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea (2005) is a young adult novel by French author and translator Valérie Zenatti. It was first published in French as Une bouteille dans la mer de Gaza. The novel begins when 17-year-old Israeli Tal Levine learns about a bombing at a neighborhood café. She is moved to send a letter in a bottle, which reaches 20-year-old Palestinian Naïm Al-Farjouk. Tal included her email address, and they begin corresponding. Initially... Read A Bottle in the Gaza Sea Summary

William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! (1936) is one of the many texts in Faulkner’s oeuvre that is set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi. Faulkner is considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, a designation earned due to his innovative and stylistic modernist techniques, which he uses to investigate the history and identity of the American South. Faulkner, who grew up in Mississippi and spent the majority of his life there, was deeply... Read Absalom, Absalom Summary

A Calamity of Souls (2024) by David Baldacci is a work of historical fiction that takes place in the 1960s American South. A legal thriller, it is set largely in a courtroom and depicts the trial of a Black man wrongfully accused of murdering a wealthy white couple. Two lawyers—one white and one Black—work together to prove his innocence in the context of systemic racism controlling the legal system. As such, it touches on themes... Read A Calamity of Souls Summary

“A Case of Identity,” published in September 1891, is the fifth episode in the series of four novels and 56 short stories in the Sherlock Holmes canon, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It follows the first two novel-length Holmes tales, A Study in Scarlet (1887) and The Sign of Four (1890), as well as the shorter stories “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Red-Headed League,” both of which appeared earlier that same year in... Read A Case Of Identity Summary

Accidental Death of an Anarchist was first written and produced by playwright and actor Dario Fo in Italy, 1970. The script was directly inspired by the events surrounding the 1969 Piazza Fontana Bombing, and much of Fo’s work revolves around political satire directed at Italy post-World War II and later. Exemplifying Fo’s work as a writer, Accidental Death of an Anarchist combines the humor, irony, and satire of the old Italian tradition of commedia dell’arte... Read Accidental Death Of An Anarchist Summary

Dashka Slater’s Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed (2023) is a work of young adult nonfiction. Slater is an investigative journalist known for exploring complex true stories involving youth and justice, most notably in her award-winning book The 57 Bus. In Accountable, she examines the fallout after a private, racist Instagram account created by a high school student is discovered in the progressive town... Read Accountable Summary

Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) was a poet and novelist who, in the late 1870s and early 1880s, became an influential advocate on behalf of Indigenous Americans. Jackson began writing A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes (1881) after learning about the 1879 Ponca legal case, and in particular the story of Chief Standing Bear, which Jackson describes in Chapter 6 and again in the... Read A Century of Dishonor Summary

A Chance in the World: An Orphan Boy, a Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home is a 2012 memoir by author Steve Pemberton. In three parts, it tells the story of his quest to learn the truth about his past. The book examines themes of identity, abuse, family, racism, and how peoples’ pasts can influence their futures. Part 1 begins with Steve’s recurring memory of the day that his mother abandoned... Read A Chance in the World Summary

Published in 1962, during the height of Cold War tensions between the Soviet Union and the West, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange reflects the anxieties and paranoia of the era. It is a dystopian novel about a roving gang of teenagers who instill fear in and inflict violence on the populace. The novel is known for its invented language, called Nadsat, which is an amalgam of Russian-influenced slang and Cockney dialect. The protagonist, the gleefully... Read A Clockwork Orange Summary

A Council of Dolls (2023), by Mona Susan Power, is a work of historical fiction that explores the lives and experiences of three generations of Dakhóta women as they confront forces aimed at erasing their cultural identity. Inspired by stories from Power’s own parents and grandparents’ time at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and Carlisle Indian Industrial School, this semi-autobiographical tale illuminates historical injustices and their lasting impacts on Indigenous Americans. Through a nonlinear temporal structure... Read A Council of Dolls Summary

A Court This Cruel and Lovely is a 2023 romantic fantasy novel by Stacia Stark and the first book in the Kingdom of Lies series. It is set in a world where the gods strip humans of their magic at birth in exchange for providing protection from the fae. Any humans who manage to retain their powers are labeled as “corrupt” and are executed. The story follows Prisca, who is forced to flee her home... Read A Court This Cruel and Lovely Summary

Catherine Cowles’s romantic suspense novel Across the Vanishing Sky (2026) is the first installment in the Starlight Grove series. The story follows Braedyn Winslow, a single mother who moves to the small mountain town of Starlight Grove one year after her best friend, Nova, vanished there during a hike. Determined to uncover the truth that the dismissive local sheriff has ignored, Braedyn begins her own investigation, but her mission is complicated by her reclusive new... Read Across the Vanishing Sky Summary

A Curse Carved in Bone (2025) is the second book in Danielle L. Jensen’s Saga of the Unfated duology. It follows A Fate Inked in Blood (2024), which earned a Goodreads Choice Award Best Romantasy nomination and a Libby Book Awards Best Fantasy nomination. Jensen is the bestselling author of the Malediction and Dark Shores young adult fantasy series and The Bridge Kingdom romance fantasy series. Marketed toward both adults and new adult readers as... Read A Curse Carved in Bone Summary

Adam of the Road, published in 1942, was written by American author and librarian Elizabeth Janet Gray Vining and illustrated by Robert Lawson. Vining wrote many children’s books and holds the rare distinction of winning both the Newberry Medal and the Caldecott Medal, for her books Rabbit Hill and They Were Strong and Good, respectively. Adam of the Road is a historical fiction novel set in the 13th century that focuses on a child’s coming of... Read Adam of the Road Summary

“A Dark Brown Dog” by American author and poet Stephen Crane is an allegorical short story that follows the tumultuous and tragic relationship between a boy and his dog. Writing within the genre of literary Realism, and as a pioneer specifically of Naturalism, Crane comments on the complexities and complications of the post-Civil War, Jim Crow-era United States. This short piece wrestles with questions of subjugation versus liberation and violence as power, utilizing the dog’s... Read A Dark Brown Dog Summary