American Panda is a 2018 contemporary young adult novel by Taiwanese American author Gloria Chao. The novel is a coming-of-age story about a 17-year-old Taiwanese American MIT student, Mei Lu, who must balance her parents’ rigid cultural rules and expectations for her future with her own desires. The story explores themes surrounding cultural identity, family dynamics, romance, and anxiety as Mei strives to reconcile the traditional Chinese values taught to her by her parents with... Read American Panda Summary

A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick is a satirical essay published anonymously in 1729 by Irish author Jonathan Swift. Using irony and hyperbole, the essay mocks heartless attitudes toward the poor among English and Irish elites by proposing that impoverished families sell their infant children to be killed and eaten by the rich. One... Read A Modest Proposal Summary

Anansi Boys is a fantasy novel by British author Neil Gaiman, written in 2005. It is set within the same world as his earlier novel American Gods and shares the title character of Anansi. In 2006, the novel won both the Locus Award and the British Fantasy Society Award. Anansi Boys deals with themes of family, duality, and storytelling, drawing from West African mythology and archetypes to create a story rooted in the here and... Read Anansi Boys Summary

Anastasia Krupnik is a middle grade novel by American author Lois Lowry and the first book in her nine-part Anastasia children’s series. Published in 1979, it follows the 10-year-old titular protagonist as she deals with the ups and downs of everyday life in her Boston hometown and anticipates the birth of her baby brother. The book was nominated for major awards, including the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award and the California Young Readers Medal... Read Anastasia Krupnik Summary

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, by Helene Tursten, is a collection of darkly comic mystery short stories. The first three stories were originally published in a Swedish collection called Mina Mindre Mord och Mysterier in 2013. In 2018, the first English edition, translated by Marlaine Delargy, was published, with two new stories included. The collection focuses on Maud, an elderly Swedish woman living in Gothenburg, who copes with life’s inconveniences by committing... Read An Elderly Lady is up to No Good Summary

“An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog” was written by the Anglo-Irish novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright Oliver Goldsmith. The poem was originally published within Goldsmith’s incredibly popular novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766). With its humor, surprising twists, and simplistic rhythm, “An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog” shares more in common with a nursery rhyme or ballad than the kind of serious elegy it satirizes, and the poem’s ironic humor is... Read An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog Summary

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons (2003) is a contemporary women’s fiction novel by bestselling American author Lorna Landvik. Over the course of three decades, five women who live on a suburban street in Minneapolis share their joys, sorrows, and eventually their secrets. They help each other through heartbreaks and triumphs, holding fast to the enduring bonds of friendship as the world changes around them. Landvik uses humor to explore the strength and value of female... Read Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons Summary

An Ideal Husband is a satirical play about blackmail, politics, morality, and marriage by Victorian writer Oscar Wilde. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal in Haymarket, London, on January 3, 1895. Wilde was an acclaimed playwright in London at the time, though his imprisonment in late 1895 marked his fall from public grace. The play has since been adapted for both film and theater across the world, as have many of Wilde’s other... Read An Ideal Husband Summary

Fredrik Backman’s 2019 novel Anxious People is a work of adult fiction that follows the lives of various characters and demonstrates how their anxieties, hopes, and fears intertwine. Backman is a New York Times bestselling author, columnist, and blogger whose works have been published in over 40 countries, including his native Sweden. One of his most famous novels, A Man Called Ove (2012), became a feature film in 2015.Anxious People is a character-driven novel that... Read Anxious People Summary

“A&P” is one of John Updike’s most well-known and celebrated short stories, first published in The New Yorker on July 22, 1961, and later appearing in the author’s short story collection Pigeon Feathers. A Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Updike populates his realist fiction with small-town, middle-class Americans. Adaptations of “A&P” include a 1966 short film directed by Bruce Schwartz, starring Sean Hayes as Sammy and Amy Smart as Queenie.The protagonist, Sammy, is also the story’s first-person... Read A&P Summary

Apex Hides the Hurt, a 2006 novel by American author Colson Whitehead, follows a nameless, emotionally muted nomenclature consultant, or an expert in creating brand names. The novel toggles between the protagonist’s memories of success at his company, and his current consulting assignment—renaming a town. The novel satirizes contemporary American consumer culture and features themes of race and identity. Whitehead uses humor and revelation as key narrative techniques in this story about a man who... Read Apex Hides the Hurt Summary

Apprentice to the Villain (2024) by Hannah Nicole Maehrer is the sequel to her 2023 novel Assistant to the Villain, which became a New York Times bestseller and a Goodreads Choice Award finalist. The series is inspired by Maehrer’s viral TikTok series that launched her writing career. Both works blend the genres of adult fantasy with romantic workplace comedy, exploring the complexities of morality, power dynamics, and the blurry line between good and evil. Building... Read Apprentice to the Villain Summary

American author Lisa Yee published The Royal Conundrum in 2024, with illustrations by Caldecott Medal-winning artist Dan Santat. Blending humor, mystery, and adventure, the novel follows Olive Cobin-Zang and her team, the Misfits, as they uncover a high-stakes conspiracy involving stolen jewels, hidden identities, and a legendary thief. Santat’s expressive illustrations enhance the story’s action and intrigue, bringing the characters and their world to life. Set in an art academy that is really a front... Read A Royal Conundrum Summary

Arsenic and Old Lace is a three-act, farcical dark comedy by American playwright Joseph Kesselring. It made its Broadway debut in 1941 and enjoyed a successful three-year run. The play was made famous by the 1944 film adaptation directed by Frank Capra and starring Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster. It is still commonly read and performed today. This guide correlates to the official script published by Dramatists Play Service Inc.Page numbers in your edition may... Read Arsenic and Old Lace Summary

A Ruin of Roses by K.F. Breene (Hazy Dawn Press, Inc, 2021) is the first installment of the Deliciously Dark Fairy Tales series, followed by A Throne of Ruin. The novel retells the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast through a modern lens, offering commentary on societal norms, gender roles, and trauma. K.F. Breene has appeared on the bestseller lists of The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, and Amazon. She has... Read A Ruin of Roses Summary

Bill Bryson (b. December 8, 1951) is a nonfiction author whose writing is especially concerned with travel, the English language, and science. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bryson attempts to succinctly summarize the Earth’s history. By looking at the most important players in the various scientific disciplines throughout the ages, he chronicles the most vital discoveries and theories in human history.Throughout the course of an introduction, thirty chapters, and nearly five-hundred pages, Bryson... Read A Short History of Nearly Everything Summary

Assassination Vacation (2005) is a work of nonfiction by Sarah Vowell. Vowell travels around her home of New York City as well as Washington, DC and to various spots in the northeastern United States from Ohio to New Jersey to visit sites related to three assassinated presidents and their assassins: Abraham Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth, James A. Garfield and Charles A. Guiteau, and William McKinley and Leon Czolgosz. Vowell intertwines her visits to historical... Read Assassination Vacation Summary

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer (Entangled Publishing, 2023) is an adult fantasy romance and a workplace romantic comedy that subverts fairy-tale tropes in an exploration of heroes, villains, and the definition of good and evil. The book was an instant New York Times number one bestseller and a finalist in the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards for the romantasy category. The sequel, Apprentice to the Villain, is due for publication in 2024. Prior... Read Assistant to the Villain Summary

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again is a 1997 essay collection by David Foster Wallace. The seven essays explore 1990s US social issues through subjects such as television, tennis, and (in the most famous essay) a Caribbean cruise. The essays have been referenced many times in popular culture, particularly the title essay, which recounts Wallace’s experiences on a cruise.This guide references the 1998 Abacus edition of the collection.SummaryIn the first essay, “Derivative Sport... Read A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again Summary

As You Like It is a pastoral comedy that features romance by William Shakespeare. The date of its first performance is unknown, but it is believed to have been written in 1599. As You Like It was first published in 1623 in the First Folio, the first of the posthumously published collections of Shakespeare’s plays.This summary refers to the 2019 Folger Shakespeare Library updated edition. Your edition’s line numbers and spellings may vary slightly.Plot SummaryWhen... Read As You Like It Summary