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
Collision Low Crossers
Nicholas Dawidoff

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2013

The Train to Crystal City
Jan Jarboe Russell

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2015

One Life: My Mother's Story
Kate Grenville

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1996

Furious Love
Sam Kashner

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2010

Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir
Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2019

Shooting Water
Devyani Saltzman

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2019

Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future
Kate Brown

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2019

The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution
Peter Hessler

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2019

Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives
Walt Odets

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1999

I Heard You Paint Houses
Charles Brandt

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2004

The Order of Time
Carlo Rovelli

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2017

From Counterculture to Cyberculture
Fred Turner

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006

Are We Rome?
Cullen Murphy

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2007

Ghetto Klown
John Leguizamo

Nonfiction | Graphic Memoir | Adult | Published in 2011

Midnight Oil
V. S. Pritchett

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1971

Cooper Union Address
Abraham Lincoln

Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1860

Final Days
Susan Orpett Long

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2021

The Play that Changed My Life
Ben Hodges

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2020

American Icon
Bryce G. Hoffman

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2012

The Words
Jean-Paul Sartre

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1964

The Sea Inside
Philip Hoare

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2013

The Future of the Mind
Michio Kaku

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2014

Citizen Jane
Christopher Andersen

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2017

Gomorrah
Roberto Saviano

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006

Maxed Out
James D. Scurlock

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006

Small Fires: Essays
Julie Marie Wade

Nonfiction | Essay Collection | Adult | Published in 2011

Trouble the Water
Derrick Austin

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016

Journey into the Whirlwind
Eugenia Ginzburg

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1967

Exiting Nirvana
Clara Claiborne Park

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1999

The Huntress
Pascale Petit

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2005

Harlem: The Vision of Morgan and Marvin Smith
John Smith, Marvin Smith, Morgan Smith

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2021

The Journal of John Woolman
John Woolman

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1774

The Rules of the Game
Gilbert Andrew Hugh Gordon

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2021

The Poison Tree
Alan Prendergast

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1995

The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
Mary Rowlandson

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1682

Speak, Memory
Vladimir Nabokov

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1951

Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention
Manning Marable

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2011

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
David Hume

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1751

A Dream Deferred
Shelby Steele

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1998

Henry David Thoreau: A Life
Laura Dassow Walls

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2017

Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number
Jacobo Timerman

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1981

Pathologies of Power
Paul Farmer

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003

Anatomy of Injustice
Raymond Bonner

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2012

Life and Death in the Third Reich
Peter Fritzsche

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2008

My Friend Leonard
James Frey

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2005

Romulus, My Father
Raimond Gaita

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1998

Little Failure
Gary Shteyngart

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2014

The Facebook Effect
David Kirkpatrick

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2010

The Heathen School
John Putnam Demos

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2014

Margaret Fuller: A New American Life
Megan Marshall

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2013

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Marcus Rediker

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1987

The Old Regime and The French Revolution
Alexis de Tocqueville

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1856

Apocalyptic Planet
Craig Childs

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2012

Country Driving
Peter Hessler

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2010

Embers of War
Fredrik Logevall

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2012

Mothers of Invention
Drew Gilpin Faust

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1996

The Senator and the Sharecropper
Chris Myers Asch

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2020

Candyfreak
Steve Almond

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2004

Custer's Trials
T. J. Stiles

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2015

Felix Longoria's Wake
Patrick J. Carroll

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2003

In Broad Daylight
Harry N. Maclean

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1988

In Fed We Trust
David Wessel

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2009

Ordeal by Hunger
George R. Stewart

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1936

The Stranger Beside Me
Ann Rule

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1980

Death at an Early Age
Jonathan Kozol

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1967

In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle
Madeleine Blais

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1995

Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan
Carlos Castaneda

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1972

Letters of a Woman Homesteader
Elinore Pruitt Stewart

Nonfiction | Collection of Letters | Adult | Published in 1914

No Ordinary Time
Doris Kearns Goodwin

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1994

The Essential Rumi
Rumi (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī)

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1995

This House of Sky
Ivan Doig

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1978

Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States
Kenneth T. Jackson

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1985

Microbe Hunters
Paul De Kruif

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1926

God's Long Summer
Charles Marsh

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1997

King of the World
David Remnick

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1998

The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo
Oscar Zeta Acosta

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1972

Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time
Marcus J. Borg

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1994

Edgar Allan Poe
Harry Lee Poe

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2010

No Sweetness Here and Other Stories
Ama Ata Aidoo

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1970

She Said Yes
Misty Bernall

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1999

They Call Me Coach
John Wooden

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1972

The Buried Mirror
Carlos Fuentes

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1992

The Creation of Patriarchy
Gerda Lerner

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1986

Passing Strange
Martha A. Sandweiss

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2009

The Hemingses of Monticello
Annette Gordon-Reed

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2008

The American Political Tradition
Richard Hofstadter

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1948

Kierkegaard: A Single Life
Stephen Backhouse

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2016

The Life of Andrew Jackson
Marquis James

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1938

Oscar Wilde
Richard Ellmann

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1987

Albert Camus: A Biography
Herbert R. Lottman

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1989

Black in Selma
J. L. Chestnut Jr.

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1991

Death of a Naturalist
Seamus Heaney

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1966

Joseph Conrad: A Critical Biography
Jocelyn Baines

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1960

Lawrence in Arabia
Scott Anderson

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2013

Michel Foucault
Didier Eribon

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1989

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh
John Lahr

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2014

The Bridge at Andau
James Michener

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1957

American Wasteland
Jonathan Bloom

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: A Biography
Margaret Forster

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 1988

The Public and Its Problems
John Dewey

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1927