Newest Study Guides
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
Each study guide includes essays, an in-depth chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quiz. Study guides are available in PDF format.
There is an expression about saving the best till last; this is exactly what Jim Crace did when he penned his final novel, Harvest. Even before he had finished writing the novel, Crace announced that it would be his final one. He stuck doggedly to...
"El Canto de mio Cid", otherwise known as "The Poem of the Cid", is the oldest Castilian epic poem that is preserved today. It is based on a real-life historical event and its hero is also taken from history. El Cid was a Castilian nobleman and...
Born and raised in the northern state of Michigan, Marge Piercy is a writer and poet, a lot of whose work engages with political question and social dilemmas. Her novel Woman on the Edge of Time, published in 1976, is no exception to that rule.
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"The Destructors" was initially published in a British photo-journalism magazine called "Picture Post". It was commonly considered to be Britain's answer to "Life" magazine. Graham Greene, one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, was...
Sarah "Saartjie" Baartman was a sideshow then a headlining attraction for audiences in Britain in the Nineteenth Century, billed as the Hottentot Venus, and it is at this time in her life that we meet her in Suzan-Lori Parks' play. Written in...
Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher, and cultural theorist. He is best known for his ideas on postmodernism, simulation and hyperreality.
Baudrillard's work, including "Simulacra and Simulation", critiques the impact...
Kathleen Raine was a British poet and scholar and a founding member of the Temenos Academy. She was interested in different types of spirituality such as Platonism and Neoplatonism as well as her scholarly writing on other poets.
She wrote a large...
Grace Nichols was born in Guyana in 1950 and grew up in a small village until her eighth birthday. She went to college at the University of Guyana, and received a degree in Communications. She held multiple writing related jobs before immigrating...
Tenth of December is a short story collection written by acclaimed American author George Saunders. It contains the stories "Victory Lap," "Sticks," "Puppy," "Escape from Spiderhead," "Exhortation," "Al Roosten," "The Semplica Girl Diaries,"...
Quicksand is a novel written by renowned author Nella Larsen, published in 1928. As there are direct links and correlations between the life of Nella Larsen and fictional character Helga Crane, both of whom are mixed race, this book can also be...
Wallace Thurman's The Blacker the Berry was published in 1929, and is looked at today as one of the key novels in Harlem Renaissance Literature. At the time of its publication it was considered to be groundbreaking, because Thurman had the courage...
Home to Harlem (1928) is author Claude McKay's first published novel. It tells the story of young Jake Brown, the protagonist of the novel, after he deserts the United States Army and heads off to London and a writer who immigrates to Haiti after...
Exit West is Mohsin Hamid's 2017 follows a young couple, Saeed and Nadia, who live in a city in the midst of a civil war. Fearing for their safety, they are finally forced to flee the city through a series of doors that lead to other parts of the...
Tarr is a classic fiction written by Wyndham Lewis and published in 1918. It is considered his first novel. Lewis is an English painter and writer and is known for his Vorticist movement. He was one of the founders of Vorticism, which disagreed...
Francisco de Quevedo (Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Santibáñes Villegas) was born in Madrid, Spain 1580. He died 64 years old in 1645. He was a nobleman, writer and politician. Fracisco de Quevedo is known as one of the most important writers of...
Point Omega is a novella written by American novelist and playwright Don DeLillo. Released in 2010, it is DeLillo's fifteenth published work.
The short book recounts the tale of Richard Elster, a scholar who served in the military to write about...
A Very English Scandal is a non-fiction, true crime novel by John Preston, arts editor and television critic of the Sunday Telegraph. Published in May 2016, it tells the story of the Jeremy Thorpe Affair, a scandal that occurred in the...
Floyd Salas is an American boxer and author of several works of fiction, including What Now My Love. He was born to a Spanish family in 1931. Raised in Denver, Colorado, Salas remarked that he "grew up in a house of books." Identified as a gifted...
Inanna is an ancient goddess with earliest roots in Mesopatamia. She was worshipped in cults in Akkadia, Assyria, and Babylon as well. Her fame lasted from around 4000 B.C. until 5000 A.D. She is the goddess of love, fertility, and beauty as well...
Director Alex Garland's mind-bending, intellectual sci-fi Annihilation released to controversy. Allegations of whitewashing and studio meddling plagued the film, yet it was a massive critical success -- but did dismally financially.
Nevertheless,...
The Exorcist is the most profitable horror movie of all time, and possibly one of the most disturbing. It was released in 1973, and stars Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow and Jason Miller. It was developed from the book of the same name...
The German Girl is a historical fiction novel written by Armando Lucas Correa. Correa is a Cuban author and journalist, and this novel was first published on October, 2016.
In terms of narrative, The German Girl takes place in two distinct yet...
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. "The New Colossus" is a sonnet written in 1883 by American poet Elizabeth Lazarus, but most people know only this snippet, used to represent the American dream that hundreds of immigrants were...
Six Shooter is a 27 minute 2004 short film written and directed by Martin McDonagh. The central actors include Brendan Gleeson, Rúaidhrí Conroy, and Domhnall Gleeson. McDonagh's film went on to win an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film....