Plot Summary Library

Explore thousands of classic and contemporary titles in a quick-read format. SuperSummary Plot Summaries feature a full synopsis to guide you through key plot points. Browse titles alphabetically or by genre.

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All TitlesModern FictionClassic FictionNonfictionPlaysEssaysPoetryMiddle Grade/YA
Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Fredric Jameson

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1991

Avengers of the New World
Laurent Dubois

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2004

Edmund Burke: The First Conservative
Jesse Norman

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2013

Job: A Man of Heroic Endurance
Charles R. Swindoll

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1987

Napoleon: A Life
Andrew Roberts

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2014

Henry James: A Life
Leon Edel

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1985

West of Kabul, East of New York
Tamim Ansary

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2002

The Land of Little Rain
Mary Hunter Austin

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1903

Bury the Chains
Adam Hochschild

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2005

In Harm's Way
Doug Stanton

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001

Living with Our Genes
Peter Copeland, Dean Hamer

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1998

A Bright Shining Lie
Neil Sheehan

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1988

A Shining Thread of Hope
Darlene Clark Hine, Kathleen Thompson

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1998

A War Like No Other
Victor Davis Hanson

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2005

Border Crossing
Caitlin Maling

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2017

Deadly Feasts
Richard Rhodes

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1997

If I Am Missing or Dead
Janine Latus

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2007

Letters to a Young Catholic
George Weigel

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2015

Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored
Clifton L. Taulbert

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1989

Something to Declare: Essays
Julia Alvarez

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1998

The Weather Makers
Tim Flannery

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2005

Beyond the Pale
Emily Urquhart

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2015

Bloodsworth
Tim Junkin

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2011

Scheherazade Goes West
Fatema Mernissi

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001

The Art of Fiction
John Gardner

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1983

Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991
Salman Rushdie

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 1981

Tristes Tropiques
Claude Lévi-Strauss

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1955

American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood
Marie Arana

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2001

Jefferson's Pillow
Roger Wilkins

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001

Founding Faith
Steven Waldman

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2008

Betrayal
Houston A. Baker Jr.

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2008

Gather Together in My Name
Maya Angelou

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1974

Hitler's Willing Executioners
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1996

Rachel and Her Children: Homeless Families in America
Jonathan Kozol

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1988

The Diversity of Life
Edward O. Wilson

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1992

The Lives of a Cell
Lewis Thomas

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1974

A Primate's Memoir
Robert M. Sapolsky

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001

Coming of Age in the Milky Way
Timothy Ferris

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1988

Emily Dickinson
Cynthia Griffin Wolff

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1986

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
Gordon S. Wood

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2004

Furiously Happy
Jenny Lawson

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2015

Holy Bible
Anonymous

Nonfiction | Scripture | Adult | Published in 1611

Satchmo Blows up the World
Penny M. Von Eschen

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2004

The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation
Charles Howard Mcilwain

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1923

The Book of Genesis
Robert Crumb

Nonfiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Adult | Published in 2009

Wind, Sand, and Stars
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1939

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes
Maya Angelou

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1986

A Testament of Hope
Martin Luther King Jr.

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1968

In the American Grain
William Carlos Williams

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1925

Trouble in Mind
Lucie Brock-Broido

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2004

John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand
Richard Reeves

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2007

The Jesus I Never Knew
Philip Yancey

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1995

An American Requiem
James Carroll

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1996

The Metaphysical Club
Louis Menand

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2001

The Songlines
Bruce Chatwin

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1987

Nicholas and Alexandra
Robert K. Massie

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1967

The Road from Coorain
Jill Ker Conway

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1989

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Anne Lamott

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1999

A Girl Named Zippy
Haven Kimmel

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2001

Janus: A Summing Up
Arthur Koestler

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1978

Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line
Ben Hamper

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1991

Deuteronomy
Anonymous

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | BCE

Three Cups of Tea
David O. Relin, Greg Mortenson

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2006

Harriet Jacobs: A Life
Jean Fagan Yellin

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2004

Tocqueville
Khaled Mattawa

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2010

John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father
Francis J. Bremer

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2003

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
Immanuel Kant

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1783

More Than Human
Ramez Naam

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2005

The Greek Way
Edith Hamilton

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1930

The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science
Armand Marie Leroi

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2014

Edith Wharton: A Biography
R.W.B. Lewis

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1975

Jane Austen: A Life
Carol Shields

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2001

She Had Some Horses
Joy Harjo

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1983

James Joyce: A New Biography
Gordon Bowker

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2011

John Donne: The Reformed Soul
John Stubbs

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2019

Augustine: Conversions and Confessions
Robin Lane Fox

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1966

Amy Hill Hearth
Amy Hill Hearth, Annie Elizabeth Delany, Sarah Louise Delany

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1993

Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song
Jim Perlman

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1981

Ten Days That Shook the World
John Reed

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1919

Nothing Like it in the World
Stephen Ambrose

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2000

Calypso
David Sedaris

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2018

Alexander Pope: A Life
Maynard Mack

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1968

Coleridge: Early Visions
Richard Holmes

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1989

Ben Jonson: A Life
Ian Donaldson

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2011

The Book of Joshua
Zachary Schomburg

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009

Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life
Hugh Brogan

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2006

Annus Mirabilis
Sally Ball

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2005

Acts of the Apostles
St. Luke the Evangelist

Nonfiction | Scripture | Adult | Published in 70

Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Life
Lyndall Gordon

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1984

Helen Keller
Eileen Bigland

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1950

The Prelude
William Wordsworth

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1850

When I Was a Soldier
Valérie Zenatti

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2002

Slumming
Chad Heap

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019

Boccaccio
Thomas G. Bergin

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1963

Wild: Endangered Animals in Living Motion
Dan Kainen, Kathy Wollard

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2012

The Good Good Pig
Sy Montgomery

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2006

Reaping the Whirlwind
Rosey Dow

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003

To the Last Breath
Carlton Stowers

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1991

When Jesus Came, The Corn Mothers Went Away
Rámon A. Gutiérrez

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1991

Packinghouse Daughter
Cheri Register

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1990