Published in 1948, The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy by English writer Evelyn Waugh is a short satirical novel that lampoons both the Los Angeles funeral industry and the Hollywood film business. British expatriates and Americans clash in this morbid but merry tale of smiling corpses and lavish pet funerals. Waugh wrote it after a trip to Hollywood during which he visited the Forest Lawn Cemetery. The book inspired the 1965 film The Loved One... Read The Loved One Summary

The Love Haters is a 2025 novel by the bestselling novelist Katherine Center. A romantic comedy about fear, acceptance, and courage, The Love Haters centers on videographer Katie Vaughn as she films a promotional video involving “Hutch” Hutcherson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer with whom she tries not to fall in love. By employing many classic tropes of contemporary romance, Center explores themes of The Importance of Body Positivity, The Varied Forms of Courage and... Read The Love Haters Summary

Written by Kirsty Greenwood, The Love of My Afterlife (2024) is a romantic comedy about life, death, and community that follows Delphie Bookham, a recently deceased woman who has kept herself away from others throughout her adult life. When Delphie dies and is brought to the afterlife, she is given 10 days to return to Earth and begin living a life she can actually enjoy. By employing many classic tropes of contemporary romance, Greenwood explores... Read The Love of My Afterlife Summary

The Love Wager is a contemporary romantic comedy by Lynn Painter, the New York Times bestselling author of several romances for adult and young adult readers. The second in a series beginning with Mr. Wrong Number, The Love Wager follows one-time lovers Jack Marshall and Hallie Piper as they make a wager about who can find love first. As Hallie and Jack build their friendship through witty banter, pet adoption, and a shared love of... Read The Love Wager Summary

The Magic Finger, by Roald Dahl, is a children’s fiction novel in the magical realism genre and was originally published in 1966. Dahl was the renowned author of 19 children’s books, many poems, short stories, screenplays, two autobiographies, and even a cookbook. His stories for children often feature young characters who rise up against the oppressive adults in their lives. In The Magic Finger, a young girl uses the power of her magic finger to... Read The Magic Finger Summary

The Man Who Died Twice is a mystery novel by British television presenter Richard Osman. Published in 2021, it is the sequel to Osman’s first novel, The Thursday Murder Club (2020). Both books were New York Times best sellers, ranking among the best-performing novels since sales records began. Steven Spielberg acquired the movie rights to The Thursday Murder Club.Set in a retirement village, The Man Who Died Twice combines narrative tension and a fast-paced, complex... Read The Man Who Died Twice Summary

Andy Weir’s debut novel, The Martian, was originally published in 2011 as serialized blog posts; after its 2014 book publication, it was a New York Times bestseller. A software engineer and son of a physicist and an electrical engineer, Weir identifies himself in the book jacket biography as a “lifelong space nerd,” and the novel is notable for staying strictly within the bounds of existing scientific understanding. Set just over two decades beyond the novel’s... Read The Martian Summary

The Midnight Gang (2016) is a humorous children’s adventure novel by David Walliams. After a game of cricket at his boarding school goes awry, 12-year-old Tom Charper wakes up in London’s Lord Funt Hospital, where he makes friends with a crew of young patients intent on making dreams come true. With themes of The Therapeutic Value of Imagination, Adults as Allies and Adversaries, and Achieving Dreams Through Collective Effort, The Midnight Gang explores the value... Read The Midnight Gang Summary

The Million Dollar Shot by Dan Gutman is a middle grade story that follows a young boy’s journey to make a single basketball shot, win $1 million, and change his family’s lives. The book won Maryland’s Black-Eyed Susan Book Award and the California Young Reader Medal, and it was also nominated for the Iowa Children’s Choice Award and Minnesota’s Maud Hart Lovelace Award, among other honors. New York Times bestselling author Dan Gutman has written... Read The Million Dollar Shot Summary

The Misfits is a young adult novel by bestselling American author James Howe. The first of four in The Misfits series, the novel chronicles a group of unpopular seventh graders’ participation in a contentious student council election. The series inspired No-Name Calling Week, a bullying-prevention initiative that has been held by schools across the country.Plot SummaryThe Misfits is told from the perspective of Bobby Godspeed, a seventh grader living in Paintbrush Falls, New York. Bobby... Read The Misfits Summary

Written by environmental advocate Edward Abbey in 1975, The Monkey Wrench Gang tells the story of a motley crew of environmental activists fighting industrialization in the American Southwest. Abbey's most famous work of fiction, this novel inspired a generation of eco-activists. Opening in the so-called "aftermath" (1) of the novel, Abbey immediately situates the reader in media res, at the site of a newly-built bridge between Arizona and Utah, over Glen Canyon. A "workman" (4)... Read The Monkey Wrench Gang Summary

Rodman Philbrick’s The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg (2009) is a historical fiction novel for middle-grade readers. It won the Newbery Honor award for its story about a young boy’s travels across Civil War America in search of his lost brother. The 2011 e-book edition is the basis for this study guide. Plot SummaryHomer Figg, 12 years old in 1863, lives on a farm in Maine with his older brother, Harold. They’re in... Read The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg Summary

The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise (2023) is a heist novel by fiction writer Colleen Oakley that explores a cross-country journey taken by elderly woman Louise Wilt and her younger caregiver, Tanner Quimby. The pair journey across the country to save Louise’s heist partner, with whom she allegedly robbed a hotel of money and jewels in 1975, from a vengeful mafia boss and to escape the authorities who are hot on their tail... Read The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise Summary

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way is a 1990 work of nonfiction by American-British author Bill Bryson. The book is structured as a straightforward chapter-by-chapter examination of the origins, history, and future of the English language. Bryson blends humor with historical research and linguistics to examine many of the peculiarities of English dialects, pronunciation, grammar, spelling, and syntax. He establishes three themes throughout the book: the role of English in the... Read The Mother Tongue Summary

The Name of This Book Is Secret (2007) is the first book in the middle grade fantasy series The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch, the pen name of writer Raphael Simon. The book is told by an intrusive narrator, the author, Pseudonymous Bosch. The narrator frequently breaks the fourth wall to address the reader directly and interrupts the story to warn the reader of the dangerous nature of the story he is telling, sometimes considering... Read The Name of This Book Is Secret Summary

The Next Great Paulie Fink by Ali Benjamin is a middle grade novel that explores the intricacies of identity, community, and the pursuit of legacy. At a school in rural Vermont, a quirky group of students called the “Originals” seek to find a replacement for their classmate Paulie, who mysteriously disappeared at the start of seventh grade. As they immerse themselves in a game-show-style competition, the Originals grapple with Paulie’s legendary status while learning that... Read The Next Great Paulie Fink Summary

“The Night the Ghost Got In” is a short story from the comedic semi-autobiographical memoir My Life and Hard Times published in 1933 by James Thurber. Thurber is best known for his short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” which has been twice adapted for film. This guide references the 1999 Harper Perennial Classics Reprint edition of My Life and Hard Times.“The Night the Ghost Got In” tells the first-person account of a young... Read The Night the Ghost Got In Summary

The Nineties: A Book by Chuck Klosterman is a comprehensive exploration of a pivotal decade in American culture. Klosterman, a cultural critic and essayist known for his insightful analyses of popular culture, brings his observational skills to bear on this influential period. Published in 2022, the book belongs to the genres of cultural history and social commentary. Klosterman’s work offers a nuanced examination of a decade often oversimplified in popular memory, challenging readers to reconsider... Read The Nineties Summary

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (1998) is the first novel in the series of the same name written by British author Alexander McCall Smith. It follows the career of Precious Ramotswe, the fictionalized first female private detective in Botswana, as she solves mysteries for her friends and neighbors. Throughout the novel, McCall Smith draws on his childhood in Zimbabwe (bordering Botswana); he was born into a family of white British administrators under the British... Read The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Summary

This guide refers to the story as it appears in the 1965 Norton Library edition of The Overcoat & Other Tales of Good and Evil, translated by David Magarshack.Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Nose,” written between 1835 and 1836, was originally published in The Contemporary, a literary journal owned by famed Russian Romantic poet Alexander Pushkin. A satire on bureaucratic life in the Tsarist capital of St. Petersburg, “The Nose” has since become an important... Read The Nose Summary