A Month in the Country is a fiction novel published in 1980 by the British author J.L. Carr, a retired schoolteacher and publisher. The novel tells the deceptively spare tale of Thomas Birkin, a veteran of World War One who, having just returned from overseas, accepts summer employment to restore a mural. Dating back nearly five centuries, the mural adorns the wall of an old country church in northern England. During the weeks he painstakingly... Read A Month in the Country Summary

Published in 1925, Theodore Dreiser’s realist novel An American Tragedy is one of the author’s most critically acclaimed works. Set in the 1920s in Kansas City, Chicago, and small-town New York state, the historical fiction novel is the story of how Clyde Griffiths, the son of poor, itinerant preachers, kills Roberta Alden during a boat trip in the Adirondack Mountains.This guide is based on the Kindle edition published by Rosetta Books.Content Warning: This novel contains... Read An American Tragedy Summary

“An Ancient Gesture” is a lyric poem by the prolific 20th-century poet and Pulitzer Prize-winner Edna St. Vincent Millay. The poem’s speaker is an emotional, hard-working woman who compares herself to a woman from Greek mythology, Penelope, the distraught wife who anxiously waits for her husband, Ulysses (or, as it’s more commonly spelled, Odysseus), to return from war. As with Millay’s more well-known poems—“First Fig” (1920) and “Thursday” (1922) among them—the poem sends the message... Read An Ancient Gesture Summary

Anatomy of an Alibi (2026) is a mystery thriller novel by Ashley Elston. It follows the braided narratives of Camille Bayliss and Aubrey Price as they entangle themselves in a web of lies surrounding Camille’s lawyer husband, Ben, and the tragic accident that changed the trajectory of Aubrey’s life. The novel examines The Precarious Process of Proving One’s Innocence, The Impact of Coercive Control Within Marriage, and The Relationship Between Class and Credibility in a... Read Anatomy of an Alibi Summary

Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman’s "A New England Nun" was first published in 1891's A New England Nun and Other Stories. The collection exhibits the author’s many modes of writing, demonstrating her mastery of the Romantic, Gothic, and psychologically symbolic genres. The stories focus on the native scenery, dialogue, landscape, and values of 19th-century New England. The stories center on themes of women’s integrity and hardships, femininity versus masculinity, and the commerce and culture of the... Read A New England Nun Summary

Angel Falls (2000) is a contemporary romance novel by Kristin Hannah. A prolific and popular author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Winter Garden and Firefly Lane, Hannah often writes about complex family relationships, love, and loss. In Angel Falls, a woman experiences a traumatic brain injury that leaves her in a coma, after which her husband discovers that she was previously married to a world-famous movie star. The novel explores themes like True... Read Angel Falls 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

Anna Karenina is Leo Tolstoy’s second novel, following War and Peace (1869). Serially published in 1877, Anna Karenina depicts the efforts of its titular character to escape an unhappy marriage to her older, civil servant husband and pursue a love affair with a young and dashing count, Alexei Vronsky. The novel is a sweeping family drama exploring Tolstoy’s interest in marriage, family, agrarian politics, and gender roles. The work is also a portrait of Russian... Read Anna Karenina Summary

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s play An Octoroon debuted off-Broadway in 2014 at Soho Repertory under their Dorothy Strelsin Foundation Fellowship for early-to mid-career playwrights. The play is a metatheatrical adaptation of the 1859 American melodrama The Octoroon by Irish playwright Dion Boucicault. Set on a Louisiana plantation, The Octoroon centers on the antebellum plight of the young white man who inherits the plantation and the technically enslaved, white-passing “octoroon”—a dated and offensive term for a person who... Read An Octoroon Summary

Antarctica is a short story collection by Irish author Claire Keegan. Originally published in 1999 by Faber and Faber, the collection includes 15 short stories set across Ireland and the United States. The collected works depict married women seeking their freedom via sexual exploration, young girls asserting themselves by standing up to their fathers or working the farmland, and men faced with and failing to uphold the weighty expectations of their sex to protect the... Read Antarctica Summary

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s by Doris Kearns Goodwin is a memoir that interweaves personal reflections with the history of one of the most turbulent and significant decades in American history. Published in 2024, this work showcases Goodwin’s expertise as a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, known for her detailed and engaging explorations of American history. The book blends memoir and historical nonfiction, focusing on her life with her late husband, Richard... Read An Unfinished Love Story Summary

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” is a short story by iconic American author J. D. Salinger. First published in The New Yorker in 1948 and later published in the collection Nine Stories (1953), it is considered one of Salinger’s breakthrough works, establishing the unique voice, flair for character, energetic dialogue, and inventive style that would become his trademarks. The story centers on a young New York City couple, Seymour and Muriel Glass, and the bizarre... Read A Perfect Day for Bananafish Summary

“A Respectable Woman,” by American author Kate Chopin, is a short story that utilizes literary Realism and an ambiguous ending to tackle themes of The Search for Female Identity, Devotion Versus Desire, The Allure of the Unknown, as well as marriage roles and sexual awakening. These are trademark elements in Chopin’s work. First published on February 15, 1894, the story follows the perspective of Mrs. Baroda, the wife of a Louisiana planter who finds it... Read A Respectable Woman Summary

Are You Mad at Me? (2025) by Meg Josephson is a self-help guide that addresses the psychological roots of people-pleasing and chronic anxiety about others’ perceptions. Drawing from trauma-informed therapy, attachment theory, Internal Family Systems, and Buddhist mindfulness practices, Josephson speaks primarily to women and marginalized individuals who learned early in life that their safety depended on managing others’ emotions. The book offers readers a framework for understanding how childhood survival mechanisms persist into adulthood... Read Are You Mad at Me? Summary

A Room with a View is a 1908 historical fiction/romance novel by British author E. M. Forster. The novel is split between Italy and England, telling the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young and spirited middle-class Englishwoman who embarks on a journey of self-discovery during a trip to Italy. During her travels, Lucy falls in love with the free-spirited and unconventional George Emerson, a fellow tourist, but is later forced to choose between her heart's... Read A Room with a View Summary

Sheldon Vanauken’s celebrated memoir A Severe Mercy is a moving portrait of deep love confronted with suffering and death. Published in 1977, A Severe Mercy was written by Vanauken from the compilation of many years’ worth of journal entries, hand-written letters, and firsthand accounts of the people and events that the narrative relates. As a Yale- and Oxford-trained scholar and professor of English and an accomplished poet and author, Vanauken brings his literary expertise to... Read A Severe Mercy Summary

Maureen Callahan’s Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed is a nonfiction historical work. Published in 2024, the book covers the troubled history of the women in the orbit of the Kennedy political dynasty. A political family defined by its photogenic, charismatic young men who entered politics as vanguards of the Democratic Party, the Kennedys have both suffered and profited from media scrutiny.Callahan, a writer for Vanity Fair and the New York Post... Read Ask Not Summary

“A Sorrowful Woman” is Gail Godwin’s most anthologized short story and tackles the themes of depression, domesticity, and female identity. Godwin is a best-selling American author and multiple National Book Award finalist who often explores these themes in her novels. “A Sorrowful Woman,” a subversion of the fairy tale, details a woman’s struggles with her role as wife and mother and the expectations and disappointments that lead her to suicide. Godwin’s unnamed characters upend the... Read A Sorrowful Woman Summary

A Stranger in the House (2017) is a domestic thriller mystery by Shari Lapena. One August night, wealthy suburbanite Karen Krupp runs out of the house in a panic and ends up driving her car into a utility pole in the bad part of town. She has no memory of how she ended up there or what happened before the accident. That same night, a mysterious man is found dead near the scene of her... Read A Stranger in the House Summary

“A Temporary Matter” by American author Jhumpa Lahiri was originally published in the New Yorker in 1998. Published in 1999, Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize-winning debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies opens with “A Temporary Matter.” The story follows Shoba and Shukumar, an Indian American married couple in their thirties, as they reconnect for one hour each evening during a planned electricity outage. Over the course of five nights, Shoba and Shukumar explore the complexities of... Read A Temporary Matter Summary