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.
Michael Warner’s The Trouble with Normal is an influential book-length statement on sexual politics in the United States. Published at the end of the 1990s, it includes discussions of sex scandals like the one that plagued President Bill Clinton,...
Walled States, Waning Sovereignty is an influential book published in 2010 by the American political theorist Wendy Brown. It seeks to explain a contemporary trend of nations building border walls throughout the world. Brown says this is a symptom...
Imamu Amiri Baraka is a prolific writer and poet active during the 1950s and 1960s. Inspired by the popular culture at the time, as well as the veins of the civil rights movements, Baraka provided powerful commentaries on race and the role it...
Saint Godric of Fichale (sometimes known as Saint Goderic) is an historical figure died on 21st May 1170 at the age of approximately ninety and shortly after his death he became a saint, although he was never formally canonized. In life he was an...
Tishani Doshi was born in Madras, India to a father from Gujarat and a mother from Wales. After qualifying herself for her occupation by obtaining a master's degree in creative writing from the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, she went on to...
Born in 1937 in the cold, dark, wet, craggy hardscrabble Welsh landscape that provides the physical and emotional topography of much of her languorous lyrical poetry, Gillian Clarke is a teacher, lecturer, editor and one of the most popular poets...
Jesus' Son was written by Denis Johnson and published in 1992. Johnson was an American writer, playwright, and journalist who was born in 1949 and died in 2017. This novel made him popular, as well as his other novel, Tree of Smoke, which won an...
The book Hondo was written based on the film Hondo, starring John Wayne and directed by John Farrow. Adapted by Louis L'Amour, the film was actual based on another one of his books. Hondo is a Western novel set in 1870. The book was published in...
Alfred Hitchcock’s first Hollywood movie was Rebecca, based on the novel by author Daphne DuMaurier. It became the only Hitchcock movie ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture. After what must have seemed an unlikely twenty-year stretch in which he...
The prolific British Science Fiction writer Sir Arthur Charles Clarke was born in 1917. Clarke’s first writing was published in 1946 and he went on to publish several novels, short stories as well as works of non-fictions about popular science and...
"Out of All Them Bright Stars" is a short story written by author Nancy Kress. Nancy Kress is an American author born in 1948; she wrote numerous books ranging from fantasy to science fiction.The titular short story talks about a sudden appearance...
Bertrand Russell was an upper-class English philosopher who was born on May 18th, 1872. He came from a long line of left-wing academics and after the death of his parents when he was only four years old, he was raised by his Grandmother. She...
Written by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and published under a pseudonym in 1849, The Sickness Unto Death is a radical exploration of Christianity, specifically Christian existentialism. Kierkegaard is widely considered to be the founder of...
Some Thoughts Concerning Education is an exposition written by John Locke and published in 1693. Within it, Locke explores the methods of education to foster a healthy mind and character. The essay was extremely influential and widely read; it...
The Varieties of Religious Experience, or just Varieties for short is a philosophical book by William James. James's text was published in 1902, shortly after the lectures presented by James at the University of Edinburgh on which the book was...
The Gnostic Gospels is the best-known of Elaine Pagels' books studying the early Christian and Nag Hammadi manuscripts. Pagers is a Harvard-educated religious historian and her work generally takes a deeper look into the way in which women were...
A Mexican novel, Aura was written by the Mexican author Carlos Fuentes. It is considered one of Carlos Fuentes's best works. It was published in Spanish in 1962, and an English version of the novel was released in 1965 and on iBooks. The novel has...
Patricia Stephens Due is an African-American civil rights activist born on December 9, 1939 in Quincy, Florida. Her daughter, Tananarive Due, is an American writer born on January 5, 1966 in Tallahassee, Florida. Patricia encountered a great deal...
Published on the first of January, 1884, "Mold of the Earth" is considered a micro story because of its short length. The story was first published in the Warsaw Courier in a special New Year's Day edition. Boleslaw Prus, the author, wrote the...
Other Desert Cities premiered on January 13, 2011 and was first shown on Broadway about 10 months later. Set in Palm Springs, California, the play is written by Jon Robin Baitz. The first Jon Baitz play to ever make it to Broadway, Other Desert...
The Fabliaux is a book of poems composed somewhere between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. The exact authors of the poems are unknown, and it is widely thought that different authors contributed to the work. The Fabliaux is erotic in nature,...
Sea of Poppies" by Amitav Ghosh is an extremely well-researched and thought-provoking novel that delves into the complex history of the opium trade in 19th-century India and China. Ghosh's mastery of language, depth of knowledge, and nuanced...
Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian author born on October 27, 1931 in Kafr Tahla, Egypt. She demonstrated a natural intelligence and poise at a young age as well as an interest in the medical science. She attended Cairo University to become a doctor....
Richard Selzer is an American doctor and writer born on June 24, 1928 in Troy, New York. At a young age, he demonstrated an intense interest in biology and psychology. Thus, after graduating from Union College, he attended Albany Medical College...