Our Town (1938) is a three-act play written by American playwright Thornton Wilder. Wilder served in both World War I and World War II and wrote honestly about life in America. He wrote several plays but considered Our Town to be his best work. It was performed for the first time in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1938. Wilder received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Our Town, and the play is widely considered to be... Read Our Town Summary

... Read Our Wives Under the Sea Summary

... Read Outlive Summary

Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust is a historical middle-grade novel in verse first published in 1997. Through 110 first-person free verse poems, the narrative tells the story of two years in the life of Billie Jo Kelby, young daughter of a struggling farming family in the Oklahoma Panhandle in the mid-1930s. After a tragic accident results in the death of Billie Jo’s mother and baby brother, she and her father must find a way... Read Out of the Dust Summary

... Read Out, Out— Summary

Out Stealing Horses, by Norwegian author Per Petterson, was first published in 2003; the English-language translation by Anne Born was published in 2005. Told in the first person, the novel follows Trond Sander’s meditations on key events in his life and his acceptance of his advancing age and future death. Set in a remote forested area of eastern Norway, the novel moves back and forth in time between its present-tense setting in 1999 and Trond’s... Read Out Stealing Horses Summary

... Read Oxygen Summary

... Read Pack Up the Moon Summary

... Read Paint the Wind Summary

Pale Fire is a 1962 experimental novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the author of seminal novels like Lolita and Pnin. The novel consists of a 999-line poem by a fictional poet and the accompanying notations by a fictional editor. Rather than analyze the poem, however, the notations create a new narrative. Pale Fire has been heralded as a landmark example of metafiction and one of the most important novels of the 20th century.This guide is written... Read Pale Fire Summary

Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a novella written by Katherine Anne Porter. It was published in 1939, along with two other short novellas, Old Mortality and Noon Wine, under the collective title Pale Horse, Pale Rider. The story portrays two young lovers who are tragically affected by the 1918 influenza epidemic, or Spanish Flu.Other works by this author include The Jilting of Granny Weatherall and Flowering Judas.This guide uses an eBook version of the 2008... Read Pale Horse, Pale Rider Summary

Paradiso is the third and concluding part of The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri’s three-part epic narrative poem. It completes the allegorical journey initiated by the first two parts, Inferno (Hell) and Purgatorio (Purgatory). Beatrice, who symbolizes Dante’s ideal woman and who had previously accompanied him through the past part of Purgatory, here accompanies him as he journeys through the nine levels or spheres of Heaven, which are represented by various celestial bodies. In each sphere... Read Paradiso Summary

Parallel Journeys (1995) is a nonfiction book by Eleanor Ayer. It won several awards, including the American Library Association’s Best Book for Young Adults. An author of many nonfiction books about the Holocaust, Ayer pairs the stories of Alfons Heck (a former Hitler Youth member) and Helen Waterford (a Holocaust survivor) to show how Nazism impacts the people it empowered and targeted. Ayer didn’t choose Alfons and Helen randomly. They formed a partnership in the... Read Parallel Journeys Summary

... Read Parallel Myths Summary

... Read Parents Weekend Summary

... Read Penitence Summary

... Read Pen Pal Summary

... Read Pensées Summary

John Fleischman’s Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science (2002) is a children’s narrative nonfiction book. It features biography, historical medicine, and introductory neuroscience. Fleischman tells the story of an 1848 railroad accident in which a man, Phineas Gage, survived after a large tamping iron went through his skull. Fleischman explains how physicians and researchers have used the case to debate how the brain functions. He illustrates the way evidence, myths, and... Read Phineas Gage Summary

Pincher Martin is a novel by British author William Golding, first published in 1956. Set during World War II, it tells the story of a Royal Navy lieutenant named Christopher Hadley Martin who washes up on an inhospitable islet after his ship sinks. Though nominally a survival story, the book primarily concerns Martin’s spiritual and metaphysical journey as he struggles to maintain his sanity while awaiting rescue.This study guide refers to the 2013 edition published... Read Pincher Martin Summary