Publication year 1986
Genre Poem, Fiction
Themes Memory
Tags Narrative Poem
School Book List Titles
Browse a Collection of texts frequently assigned in literature classrooms, including well-studied classics and contemporary literature. Representitive of the breadth of the literary tradition, the School Book List Titles Collection features texts for readers of all age levels, from children's literature to plays and novels centered on adult themes.
The Gift
The Glass Bead Game
The Golden Ass
The Golden Bowl
The Golden Notebook
The Good Life
The Government Inspector
The Great Treehouse War
The Great Trouble
The Guitar
The Gulag Archipelago
The Hamlet
The Hand
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart of the Matter
The Hill We Climb
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
The History Teacher
The Hot Zone
The House of Mirth
Publication year 1986
Genre Poem, Fiction
Themes Memory
Tags Narrative Poem
Publication year 1943
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Self Discovery, Order & Chaos, Truth & Lies
Tags Science Fiction, Philosophy, Classic Fiction, Parody, German Literature
The Glass Bead Game or Magister Ludi (1943), written by Hermann Hesse, is a bildungsroman and fictional biography of Joseph Knecht, the Master of the Glass Bead Game in the utopian society of Castalia. An anonymous narrator traces the life and legend of this man as he rapidly ascends the Order of Castalia and suddenly quits his office, leaving behind a life of ease for the chaos of the outside world. Through Knecht’s inner turmoil... Read The Glass Bead Game Summary
Publication year 159
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Sexual Identity, Coming of Age, Art
Tags Fantasy, Mythology, Humor, Symbolic Narrative, Relationships, Animals, European History, Ancient Rome
Publication year 1904
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Marriage, Loyalty & Betrayal, Forgiveness, Grief, Guilt, Loneliness, Love, Shame & Pride, Midlife, Future, The Past, Appearance & Reality, Fathers, Self Discovery, Social Class, Community, Power & Greed, Trust & Doubt, Truth & Lies
Tags Historical Fiction, Classic Fiction, American Literature, US History, World History
The Golden Bowl is a 1904 novel by Henry James. The novel explores the intricacies of marriage and affairs in the early 19th century through the affair of Amerigo and Charlotte, who were once in love but too poor to marry. Amerigo instead marries Maggie, and Charlotte marries Maggie’s father, a wealthy American museum curator. While Amerigo is at first happy with his new wife, the time she spends with her father creates an opportunity... Read The Golden Bowl Summary
Publication year 1962
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Gender Identity, Mental Health, Sexual Identity, Self Discovery, Nostalgia, Literature
Tags Gender & Feminism, Classic Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Postmodernism, British Literature, Depression & Suicide, Love & Sexuality, Mental Illness, Relationships, Cold War, Colonialism & Postcolonialism, Women`s Studies, World History
Considered the most influential of Doris Lessing’s many novels, The Golden Notebook explores the development of a young writer. Anna Wulf has published one novel, Frontiers of War, to great acclaim, but she now finds herself uncomfortable with what she sees as its sentimentality and romanticization of war. Thus, she remains mired in a kind of writer’s block. She still writes in her notebooks, but she cannot bring herself to return to writing novels—especially in... Read The Golden Notebook Summary
Publication year 2011
Genre Poem, Fiction
Themes Aging, Nostalgia, Shame & Pride
Tags Lyric Poem, Finance
Publication year 1836
Genre Play, Fiction
Themes Power & Greed, Guilt, Community, Politics & Government, Truth & Lies
Tags Comedy & Satire, Classic Fiction, Russian Literature
The Government Inspector is a satirical stage play by Russian-Ukrainian author Nikolai Gogol, originally published in 1836 and later revised in 1842. Also known as The Inspector General, the play is a comedy of errors based on a supposed anecdote relayed to Gogol by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. In a small unnamed Russian town, a young dissolute government clerk, Khlestakov, is mistaken for an awaited government inspector. Khlestakov uses the situation to his advantage... Read The Government Inspector Summary
Publication year 2017
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Family, Friendship, Conflict
Tags Realistic Fiction, Humor, Children`s Literature, Modern Classic Fiction
Publication year 2013
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Perseverance, Hope, Social Class, Community, Art, Religion & Spirituality, Science & Technology
Tags Mystery & Crime Fiction, Historical Fiction, Health, British Literature, Children`s Literature, Grief & Death, World History
The Great Trouble: A Mystery of London, the Blue Death, and a Boy Called Eel (2013) is a middle grade historical fiction novel by American author Deborah Hopkinson. Hopkinson is a prolific writer of books for young readers and has published over 70 books, including biographies, picture books, middle grade historical fiction, and long-form nonfiction. The Great Trouble explores themes of class disparity and scientific inquiry and is set against the background of the 1854... Read The Great Trouble Summary
Publication year 2002
Genre Poem, Fiction
Themes Grief, Music
Tags Lyric Poem
Publication year 1973
Genre Biography, Nonfiction
Themes Fear, Good & Evil, Justice
Tags Life-Inspired Fiction, Incarceration, World History, Trauma & Abuse, Politics & Government, Russian Literature, World War II, Philosophy, Philosophy, Classic Fiction, Biography
Publication year 1940
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Family, The Past, Social Class, Power & Greed
Tags American Literature, Southern Literature, Southern Gothic, World History, Historical Fiction, Classic Fiction
Publication year 1996
Genre Poem, Fiction
Themes Education
Tags Lyric Poem, Education, American Literature
Publication year 1940
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Marriage, Community, Social Class
Tags Classic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Victorian Period, British Literature, American Literature, Southern Literature, Southern Gothic
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is a Southern Gothic novel written by Carson McCullers, one of the most prominent American literary voices of the 20th century. Set in a small unnamed town, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter captures the spiritual isolation and loneliness of five ordinary people in the deep American South in the 1930s. McCullers is known for her contributions to the development of the Southern Gothic subgenre, and her novels... Read The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Summary
Publication year 1948
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Guilt, Shame & Pride, Religion & Spirituality
Tags Classic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Christian, Religion & Spirituality, History: African , British Literature, Colonialism & Postcolonialism, World History
Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter was published in 1948 and is one of his most famous Catholic-themed novels. These novels comprise the majority of his literary oeuvre and underscore a recurring theme in Greene’s works: moral crisis and true faith. Greene’s iconoclastic views of Catholicism are explored through complex protagonists like Henry Scobie, the flawed hero of The Heart of the Matter, who are torn between passion and faith.The Heart of the Matter... Read The Heart of the Matter Summary
Publication year 2021
Genre Poem, Fiction
Tags Inspirational, African American Literature, Gender & Feminism, Modern Classic Fiction, World History, Social Justice, Politics & Government
Publication year 1749
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Love, Social Class, Coming of Age
Tags Coming of Age, Classic Fiction, Satirical Literature, Humor, Romance, Historical Fiction, British Literature, World History
First published in 1749, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling is considered one of the best and most influential early novels in English literature. Henry Fielding was a respected dramatist, essayist, and satirist, and as a public official, he helped to establish London’s first professional police force.A comic novel that blends romance, realism, picaresque, and social commentary—while passing itself off as a true history of a life as well as a reflection of human... Read The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling Summary
Publication year 1991
Genre Poem, Fiction
Themes Conflict, Education, Community, Childhood & Youth, Truth & Lies, Safety & Danger
Tags Satirical Literature, Narrative Poem, Modernism, Humor
Publication year 1994
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Environment, Globalization, Community
Tags Science & Nature, Health, Horror & Suspense, World History
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a non-fiction thriller, published in 1994, two years after his article “Crisis in the Hot Zone” appeared in The New Yorker. Preston writes often on Ebola, bioweapons, and emerging viruses. The Hot Zone deals with the breaking of Ebola into the human species and a 1989 incident in which an Ebola-like virus, the Reston virus, sweeps through a monkey quarantine facility outside of Washington, DC. The book served... Read The Hot Zone Summary
Publication year 1905
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Social Class, Community, Friendship, Economics, Shame & Pride, Nature Versus Nurture, Power & Greed, Beauty, Marriage, Trust & Doubt, Equality, Gender Identity, Appearance & Reality, Truth & Lies, Love, Femininity, Art, Perseverance, Hope
Tags Classic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Satirical Literature, Social Class, Gilded Age, Naturalism, American Literature, World History
Set in New York’s high society at the turn of the 20th century, The House of Mirth (1905), was the second novel by renowned American writer Edith Wharton. Wharton drew upon her own privileged upbringing in a wealthy, long-established New York family for her astute observations of this social milieu during the Gilded Age, a period marked by economic disparities and ostentatious materialism. Prior to the novel’s publication in October 1905, The House of Mirth... Read The House of Mirth Summary