George Saunders’s debut collection, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, was originally published in 1996. Comprised of six stories and a novella, the collection is satirical and interrogates late American capitalist consumer culture. He is also known for the collections Pastoralia (2000), In Persuasion Nation (2006), Tenth of December (2013), and Liberation Day (2022).In the title story, “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline,” the protagonist works at a CivilWar-era themepark. Due to slumping profits from an increasing gang presence... Read CivilWarLand in Bad Decline Summary

Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine is a short chapter book for elementary-aged readers. Marla Frazee’s black and white illustrations bring the text to life. Clementine and the subsequent books in the series have won numerous awards; notably, Clementine is a New York Times bestseller and the winner of the 2007 Boston Globe/Horn Book Award. Little, Brown and Company published Clementine in 2006. This study guide refers to the 2008 first trade paperback edition of the book.Plot SummaryClementine... Read Clementine Summary

Mick Herron’s 2025 novel Clown Town is the ninth installment in his acclaimed Slough House series of satirical spy thrillers. The story revisits the “slow horses,” a team of disgraced MI5 agents relegated to a dilapidated London office building, as they become entangled in a high-stakes conflict rooted in the intelligence service’s dark past. When a secret audio recording from a legendary spymaster’s library resurfaces, it triggers a dangerous chain of events, forcing the ruthless... Read Clown Town Summary

Cold Comfort Farm (September 1932) is the first book by British author Stella Gibbons. Upon publication, it became an instant success. The comic novel is a parody of rural romances that were popular in Britain at the time. The story was adapted for two BBC television shows in 1968 and 1981. It was also made into a film starring Kate Beckinsale in 1995. Cold Comfort Farm is classified under the category of Classic Humor Fiction... Read Cold Comfort Farm Summary

Colored Television by Danzy Senna is a 2024 novel about Black biracial writer Jane Gibson’s struggle to reinvent herself from a struggling literary writer and college instructor into a television writer for a Black Hollywood producer. Senna is a biracial college professor who has used semi-autobiographical elements in her previous novels. Senna draws on her experiences to illustrate the difficulties protagonist Jane Gibson faces. A Good Morning America Book Club pick, Colored Television blends elements... Read Colored Television Summary

Confederates in the Attic is a non-fiction book written by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz. The book is a mixture of ethnography—the study of a specific group of people in a specific place—and travel writing, where Horwitz attempts to dive deeply into his childhood fascination for the American Civil War by traveling through the deep South, visiting Confederate battlefields, museums, and monuments, and interviewing the locals that he comes into contact with about their relationship to... Read Confederates In The Attic Summary

Published in 2000, Confessions of a Shopaholic was the breakout success of British novelist Sophie Kinsella (the pen name of Madeleine Wickham), a former financial journalist from London. Before adopting the Kinsella pseudonym, Wickham published several traditional novels, but she gained international recognition through the Shopaholic series, along with later stand-alone works such as Can You Keep a Secret? and The Undomestic Goddess.The novel follows Rebecca Bloomwood, a journalist whose compulsive spending habits clash comically... Read Confessions of a Shopaholic Summary

The postmodern fiction writer David Foster Wallace wrote “Consider the Lobster” for the August 2004 issue of Gourmet. Wallace was one of the most acclaimed American writers of his generation, known for his novels Infinite Jest (1996)—named one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005 by Time magazine—and The Pale King (2011), which was published posthumously and named as a contender for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Editors at Gourmet sought... Read Consider The Lobster Summary

Published in 2008, Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce is a science fiction novel for middle grade readers. The story centers around 12-year-old Liam Digby, who is taller than his peers and always feels too big. When he and his friend Florida get the chance to take a rocket ship into space, Liam feels small for the first time. The story explores several themes, including How a Change in Environment Can Change One’s Perspective, The Importance... Read Cosmic Summary

Daniel Mason’s 2024 novel, Country People, is a satirical work of literary fiction from the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth (2020) and the best-selling North Woods (2023). The story follows the Krzelewski-Petrosian family, who move from California to rural Vermont for a year. While literature professor Kate thrives in her visiting position, her husband, Miles, a 14-year graduate student, finds his academic ambitions sidelined by the... Read Country People Summary

Crazy Rich Asians is a 2013 romance comedy novel by American author Kevin Kwan about a young Asian American woman who travels with her boyfriend to his native Singapore and finds herself suddenly thrust into the cutthroat world of Asia’s uber-rich. Kwan based the novel loosely on his own experiences growing up in Singapore. It is the first novel in a three-book series, followed by China Rich Girlfriend (2015) and Rich People Problems (2017), all... Read Crazy Rich Asians Summary

Crome Yellow (1921) is a short satirical novel by British writer Aldous Huxley. Set during a summer house party at an English country estate, it explores changing social and cultural dynamics in post-World War I Britain by juxtaposing characters with very different personal backgrounds, belief systems, and desires. The text has been described as a comedy of manners and a novel of ideas, and as an early example of literary modernism, it features instances of... Read Crome Yellow Summary

Chelsea Curto’s 2026 novel, Cross Check, is the sixth installment in the D.C. Stars hockey romance series by New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Chelsea Curto. The story chronicles the multi-year, slow-burn relationship between Amelia Green, the first female head coach in the NHL, and Grant Everett, a younger, rising star on a rival team. Navigating a secret romance, they must contend with strict professional boundaries, the threat of public exposure, and the... Read Cross Check Summary

British author Roald Dahl first published Danny the Champion of the World in 1975. This award-winning children’s novel was adapted into a made-for-TV movie in 1989. The story follows Danny and his single-father, William, as they concoct a plan to poach all of the pheasants from a mean, rich landowner’s woods. Dahl’s children’s books are humorous and unsentimental, usually featuring a heroic young protagonist and an obnoxious adult antagonist. Dahl’s other works for children include The Gremlins... Read Danny, the Champion of the World Summary

Jack Gantos is the author of the coming-of-age, historical fiction novel Dead End in Norvelt (2011). The story is partly autobiographical, as it is based on Gantos’s experiences growing up in the early 1960s in Pennsylvania. Gantos gives the adolescent main character his name. Gantos has published many books for children and young readers including the illustrated Rotten Ralph series (1976-2011), a chapter book series about Joey Pigza (1998-2014), and the memoir Hole in My... Read Dead End In Norvelt Summary

Nikolai Gogol called his 1842 work Dead Souls an “epic poem in prose,” though most critics and scholars now refer to it as a novel. Structured in part as an analog to Dante’s Inferno, Dead Souls is an absurdist social satire of imperial Russia before the emancipation of the serfs, especially the foibles and customs of the Russian nobility. Though Gogol is not interested in strict realism, his portraits of nobles who speak French more... Read Dead Souls Summary

Written by Patricia Wrede, Dealing with Dragons (1990) is a middle-grade fantasy novel that collectively joins two subsequent installments—Searching for Dragons (1991) and Calling on Dragons (1993)—as prequels to the author’s 1985 book, Talking to Dragons. Together, these titles form the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Wrede has written several other series, along with a number of young-adult novelizations for the Star Wars prequels.Dealing with Dragons follows Princess Cimorene, who rejects “proper” princess behavior and elects to... Read Dealing with Dragons Summary

Delilah Green Doesn’t Care is a 2022 adult lesbian romantic comedy novel by Ashley Herring Blake. It is the first book in her Bright Falls series, followed by Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail in 2023 and Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date in 2024. Herring Blake has also written numerous books for younger audiences, and her 2018 middle grade novel Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World was a Stonewall Honor Book and a Best Book of 2018 for... Read Delilah Green Doesn't Care Summary

David Walliams’s Demon Dentist is a 2013 middle grade novel that blends horror, fantasy, and comedy. A National Book Award winner in the Children’s Book of the Year category, Demon Dentist follows 12-year-old Alfie Griffith’s quest to catch the tooth snatcher, a mysterious force who takes the teeth that children leave beneath their pillows and leaves behind disturbing replacements. When Alfie suspects that the town’s terrifying new dentist, Miss Root, is directly involved in the... Read Demon Dentist Summary

Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto is a novel that blends the cozy mystery, romantic comedy, and contemporary domestic fiction genres within the context of Chinese Indonesian culture. It follows the comedic shenanigans of the Chan family: After a bad date results in an accidental murder, Meddy Chan, her mother, and her three outspoken, bickering aunties must hide the body—and keep it hidden—all while working a high-profile wedding. Meddy, in juggling all that... Read Dial A for Aunties Summary