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 are as many different and varied routes on the path to becoming a best-selling novelist as there are novels, stories and plots; Caroline Kepnes' path was not the traditional, well-worn one of academia, but a slightly more glitzy affair....
Angels & Insects : Two Novellas is really quite challenging reading because of its subject matter; set in Victorian England, it tells the story of an upper class household, proper and upright on the outside but embroiled in an incestuous...
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Italian Journey (published from 1816 to 1817) is Goethe's report on his travels to Italy from 1786 to 1788. Based on his diaries that he took during his long journey, Goethe spends much of the book ruminating on art,...
First delivered as a series of lectures, C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man: Reflections on Education with Special Reference To the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools is a famous book. Categorized by Amazon as a book in the Christian...
Nisei Daughter is the story of Monica Sone's experiences as a Japanese American in the 1920s and 1930s, growing up in Seattle, never really feeling that she fit in anywhere. It is also the story of the Japanese American experience in post-Pearl...
The Golden Notebook was published in 1962. At this time, Doris Lessing was moderately well known as a writer of novels and short stories; Notebook solidified her reputation. It was well regarded but somewhat controversial for its fragmented and...
In the late nineteen eighties, a magazine called New Woman hit the shelves in the U.K. Less political than empowering, the magazine positioned itself as a publication for women who were confident, independent, and perfectly capable of taking care...
"Bogland" appears in Seamus Heaney's second collection of poetry, Door Into The Dark (1969), which details Heaney's rural upbringing. "Bogland" is the final poem in the book, which is written with a great deal of attention devoted to evoking...
"Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music" is an ode written by John Dryden. It was written in 1697 in celebration of Saint Cecelia's day. The original ode was set to music by the musician Jeremiah Clarke, but, due to its relative obscurity at the...
Highly controversial in its time, Blasted is British author Sarah Kane's first play. It premiered in London at the Royal Court Theatre. It has many shocking and rather gruesome elements, including rape, cannibalism, and suicide, elements which...
Archie Weller did not take a traditional route to the top of the literary tree in his native Australia, although since modern Australia is a country that was created to house criminals transported from Britain, it is actually quite fitting. After...
Although Mick Jackson's Denial (2016) was a critical success, it was a massive box office bomb. It took only $8 million against a budget of $10 million dollars. Typically, films must make two to three times their budget in order to make a profit...
The Little Foxes is a play written in 1939 by acclaimed and controversial American dramatist Lillian Hellman. It takes place in a small town in Alabama in 1900 and looks at strained dynamics within a Southern family. The original production...
Simple Recipes is a book containing eight short stories centered around different families in different circumstances. It is written by Chinese American novelist Madeleine Thien, first published in 2001 and then later republished in 2002 by...
A.M. Klein certainly had an interesting life. Born in February 1909, Klein was a poet, journalist, novelist, short story writer and lawyer. However, he is best-known for his poetry. Some of his most-famous poems include: "Out of the Pulver and the...
Nnedi Okorafor had never intended to become a writer; a talented track runner in her teens, Okorafor was a nationally-ranked athlete, and also excelled academically with a particular interest in the sciences. Her plan was to attend college on a...
Kitchen is the novel that truly made Banana Yoshimoto, considered one of Japan’s most esteemed contemporary writers, famous and earned her the acclamation of critics and the public alike. Published in 1987, it rapidly became a bestseller; to date,...
That Hideous Strength is the third novel in what is known as C.S. Lewis's "Space Trilogy" (the first two being Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, respectively). These works of science fiction are notably out of keeping with the rest of...
Perelandra is the second novel in what is known as C.S. Lewis's "Space Trilogy" (the first being Out of the Silent Planet, and the conclusion being That Hideous Strength). These works of science fiction are notably out of keeping with the rest of...
G.K. Chesterton was a devout man who wrote Christian apologetics profusely; he converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism when he began to feel that the Anglican church was losing sight of its orthodoxy and relaxing its principles too much. The...
A devout Catholic, Chesterton was, by his own admission, irritated by critics who objected to his Christian apologetics writings. Chesterton wrote a great deal in defense of Christianity, the most well-known of these writings being Heretics. When...
Marcus Cicero wrote De Officiis (also known as On Obligations) in less than four weeks, in the Fall of 44 BC. It is a long that details Cicero's idea of the best way to live. The treatise is split into three separate books. Book One deals with...
The Leopard is a book written by the Italian author and social critic Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. The book, which is a chronicle of Italian history, was published in 1958 by Feltrinelli after many query-rejections. It spans over 330 pages...
Based on the true story of a female prisoner at the Qanatir Prison in Egypt, Woman at Point Zero is one of Nawal El Saadawi’s most celebrated works. After Egyptian publishers rejected the book because of its radical content, Saadawi had it...