William Wycherley’s The Country Wife was written and first performed in London, in 1675. The play has lived on as one of the most famous examples of British Restoration comedies and continues to be produced frequently. The Restoration era, between 1660 and about 1700, describes the period following the Commonwealth era and the restoration of the English monarchy. During the Commonwealth, theatre was banned in England for 18 years, so with his return to the... Read The Country Wife Summary

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Deep End is a middle-grade graphic novel written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney. Published in 2020, The Deep End is the 15th in the 19-part Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. In the realist graphic style, the series is presented as the journal of protagonist Greg Heffley, a middle-schooler who narrates and illustrates his everyday life. The series has been adapted into a television series and a movie trilogy... Read The Deep End Summary

Published in 2025, The Defender is a contemporary sports romance by Ana Huang. The novel is the second interconnected standalone in the Gods of the Game series, which follows the players of the fictional Blackcastle Football Club in London. The story centers Vincent DuBois, the team’s celebrated captain, whose life is disrupted by anonymous threats from a stalker. For his own safety, he moves in with his coach’s daughter, a sports nutritionist named Brooklyn Armstrong... Read The Defender Summary

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 Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008) is E. Lockhart’s fifth novel. Lockhart is the penname used by the writer Emily Jenkins when she writes for a young adult audience. The novel won the Cybils Award for Best Young Adult novel in 2008 and was a National Book Award finalist. It was also a Michael L. Printz Honor Book in recognition of its literary merit. The novel follows the titular heroine, Frankie, as she navigates the... Read The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks Summary

The Do-Over (2022) is a young adult contemporary romance by Lynn Painter. The novel follows Emilie Hornby, a teenage girl who lives her life to scheduled perfection. However, her perfectly planned Valentine’s Day completely unravels when she crashes cars with her surly chemistry partner, Nick Stark; has her prestigious summer internship revoked; witnesses her boyfriend, Josh Sutton, cheating on her with his ex, Macy; and discovers her father is moving across the country for a... Read The Do-Over Summary

The Dunciad in Four Books is a mock-heroic narrative poem by English poet Alexander Pope, one of the leading voices of Augustan literature in the first half of the 18th century. An original version in three books was published anonymously in 1728, followed by the Dunciad Variorum in 1729, which bore Pope’s name and included new introductory materials. A fourth book, or New Dunciad, was published in 1742 and intended as a sequel, and the... Read The Dunciad Summary

The Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket published by Harper Collins in 2001 is the sixth installment in the children’s mystery A Series of Unfortunate Events books. It follows the Baudelaire orphans as they navigate yet another new home while trying to stay ahead of the dastardly villain, Count Olaf, who seeks to steal their fortune. Since the publication of the first book, The Bad Beginning, in 1999, A Series of Unfortunate Events books (13 in... Read The Ersatz Elevator Summary

The Expedition of Humphry Clinker is an 18th-century epistolary picaresque novel written by the Scottish novelist Tobias Smollett and published in 1771. The novel is Smollett’s final work, as he died a few months after it was published. The novel draws on Smollett’s experiences growing up in Scotland and traveling widely through Great Britain and Europe, and it includes detailed descriptions of various locations in Great Britain. Smollett uses the novel to satirize vanity, superficiality... Read The Expedition of Humphry Clinker Summary

Originally appearing in the magazine Science Fiction Stories in 1953, “The Eyes Have It” is an early story from Philip K. Dick, a prolific American science fiction writer who initially gained popularity in the 1950s and 1960s before rising to national renown. Philosophical dilemmas, ontological perplexities, and the precarious relationship between humans and technology are just a few of the themes that characterize much of Dick’s work. His writing received several awards, including the Hugo... Read The Eyes Have It Summary

The Female Quixote is a 1752 novel by Charlotte Lennox. The novel borrows ideas and themes from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Like Don Quixote, the protagonist Arabella is obsessed with fictional stories about heroes and heroines. The satirical novel, Lennox’s second, was praised on release, and critics today note its importance in the history of literature by women authors.This guide refers to the 2008 Oxford World Classics edition.Plot SummaryThe Female Quixote is set... Read The Female Quixote Summary

The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride is a 2018 novel by American writer Joe Siple. It is Siple’s debut novel, though he has since published four others, including one direct sequel, The Final Wish of Mr. Murray McBride. Siple’s book tells the story of Murray McBride, a 100-year-old man who develops an unlikely friendship with a 10-year-old boy, Jason Cashman. Jason is in dire need of a heart transplant, and Murray tries to help... Read The Five Wishes of Mr. Murray McBride Summary

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary is an adult romantic comedy published in 2019. It sold over one million copies and has been adapted for television by Paramount+. It is O’Leary’s first novel, and she was nominated for a Comedy Women in Print prize upon its release. The novel centers on the story of Leon and Tiffy, who share an apartment—and a bed—but at different times of day, so it is months before they actually meet... Read The Flatshare Summary

In 2014’s The Fourteenth Goldfish, by Jennifer L Holm, an aging scientist turns himself into a teenager who must re-enter middle school alongside his granddaughter while they plot to get him back into his lab to finish his brilliant work. A humorous science-fiction novel for middle-grade readers, The Fourteenth Goldfish is the first in a two-book series.   New York Times Bestselling author Holm has written nearly 60 books for young readers, including the May Amelia... Read The Fourteenth Goldfish Summary

The Fourth Stall is a 2011 contemporary realistic middle grade novel by Chris Rylander. With the help of his best friend and business manager Vince, sixth grader Mac runs a secret business as a “fixer” in his elementary school: He solves problems and provides services for fellow students—for a price. When Mac takes on a customer requiring protection from Staples, a legendary local criminal, he must decide the best way to deal with Staples’s harmful... Read The Fourth Stall Summary

Frogs is an ancient Athenian comic play by Aristophanes (446-386 B.C.E.). It was first performed in 405 B.C.E. for the Lenaia, an annual sacred festival held in January in honor of the god Dionysus. According to ancient sources, Frogs (which won first prize) was held in such high regard that it was honored with a second production, an unusual event since comedies and tragedies were produced for competition at sacred festivals and rarely staged again... Read The Frogs Summary

Matt Dinniman’s The Gate of the Feral Gods (2021) is the fourth book in the bestselling Dungeon Crawler Carl series. A work of LitRPG (Literary Role-Playing Game) science fiction, the novel continues the saga of Carl, a human survivor forced to compete in a lethal, galaxy-wide reality show on the ruins of Earth. Joined by his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, Carl navigates the fifth floor, a landscape of isolated “bubbles” where he and his allies... Read The Gate of the Feral Gods Summary

In his 2008 nonfiction book The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner travels the world in search of happiness. Weiner, a former foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, sets out in this travelogue to investigate where in the world people are the most happy—and why. Casting himself as an inveterately cranky person, Weiner mixes humor, scientific inquiry, and psychological research to explain geographic concentrations of elevated mood. Since its publication, the book has been on the... Read The Geography of Bliss Summary

The Gilded Age, by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, is a satirical work of fiction originally published in 1873. Notable for being the only novel Twain co-authored with a collaborator, The Gilded Age satirizes greed and corruption in America’s post–Civil War era. Mark Twain, best known for his celebrated classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was a pioneer in American literary Realism and vernacular writing. Charles Dudley Warner was a writer, editor, and close... Read The Gilded Age Summary

In the 1985 children’s book The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me by Roald Dahl, a boy befriends three animals who operate a window-washing service. They set out to clean all 677 windows of the mansion of the richest man in England; in the process, they capture a notorious jewel thief and open a store filled with candies from around the world. Dahl’s books have won many awards and sold over 300 million copies, making... Read The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me Summary