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High Tide in Tucson is a compilation of 25 essays by Barbara Kingsolver, a writer and ecologist, centering around the themes of family, community, and ecology. The book was published in 1995, and praised for its well-written narrative style and...

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin first appeared in Amazing Stories magazine in 1971. The title of the book, as well as some quotes placed in the beginning of every chapter, are taken from Chuang Tzu works. Others are taken from H. G. Wells,...

The Shadowy Third and Other Stories is a collection of short stories that was published in 1923 and written by Ellen Glasgow. This is her only short story collection, as her novels receive more general attention. Glasgow was an American author who...

Sheppard Lee is a novel published in 1836 and written by Robert Montgomery Bird. Bird was an American writer, who specialized in novels and plays, as well as a physician. Bird was born to a wealthy family in Delaware and taken in by his rich...

Some academics have suggested that Rebecca Harding Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills” should be regarded as the first work of American fiction which can rightly be categorized as an example of Realism. Not that it is entirely so; the caveat placed...

Burial Rites is Hannah Kent's debut novel, published in 2014, and winner of the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year, the Victorian Premier's People's Choice Award, and more. About an Icelandic woman sentenced to death after she is charged with...

“The Monument” is a poem by Elizabeth Bishop originally published in 1939 and then collected in her first book of poetry, North and South, in 1946. The poem is an example of what is known as ekphrastic verse which is just fancy literary...

An American short-story writer, novelist, editor, and poet, Howard Phillip Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was from Providence, Rhode Island. He was heavily inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe and Algernon Blackwood, as well as...

Mysterious Kor, written between 1941 and 1944, contains traces of Elizabeth Bowen's biography. She was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1899 but spent her childhood in Dublin and at Bowen Court, the family home in Cork, England. Bowen was 13 when her...

Turtle Island is Gary Snyder’s volume of thematically related verse which earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1974 and is considered by many the zenith of his career. After publishing half a dozen volumes that barely managed even to...

Wendy Cope is a British writer who is known primarily for her poems. Wendy Cope was born in England in 1945 and for an extended period of time she worked as a teacher. Wendy Cope began writing late in her life, having her first collection of...

The 18th century proved to be a revolutionary moment in the long history of the institution of marriage. In England, at any rate, some of the longstanding contractual and transactional conventions underwent a period of renegotiation in the public...

Howl's Moving Castle is a children's fantasy novel written in 1986 by renowned English fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones. It tells the story of the return of the evil Witch of the Waste after fifty years of dormancy, and her threatening behavior...

An award-winning novel by Neil Gaiman, American Gods is a blend of both modern religions and ancient mythologies. This includes Norse mythology and Americana. Published in 2001 by British Publishing House Headline, this novel alludes to themes...

As the 18th century was slowly drawing to a close, Thomas and Elizabeth Homer Strickland welcomed their ninth child, Elizabeth. One might well say she was born to become a writer; five of her siblings pursued the same career path. Agnes had chosen...

A Cop's Life: True Stories from the Heart Behind the Badge is a collection of twenty short stories by Las Vegas Police Department Sergeant Randy Sutton, that detail the experiences' law enforcement officers go through in the line of duty. It was...

Published in 2011, Machine Man is Australian writer Max Barry’s fourth novel. The work began in March 2009 as a page a day entry five times a week posted to the author’s personal website. These weekly contributions combined with reader feedback...

Written by Iraq war veteran Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds is a poignant, realistic story of the complex dynamics of life on the battlefield. The book was critically acclaimed, winning many awards, including the 2013 Hemingway Foundation Award....

Under This Unbroken Sky is the debut novel of author Shandi Mitchell, telling the tragic, moving tale of a Ukrainian immigrant struggling to reconnect with his family and heal together after being separated from them for nearly two years. It was...

Regarded as a master of the short story, K. Saraswathi Amma was born in rural Malaya in 1919. Her upper-class family status afforded her the opportunity to receive a formal education, and in 1941 she received a Bachelor's Degree in the Mayalam...

District 9 is Neil Blomkamp's 2009 film that tells the story of an alien spacecraft that lands on Earth in the early 1980's. The aliens, however, have not arrived to destroy Earth or to render Earth's people aid; they have landed on Earth as...

March is a three-part graphic novel that tells the story of how Rep. John Lewis came to take part in the Selma-to-Montgomery march that eventually led to the Bloody Sunday confrontation between police and civil rights protesters. The series of...

Grace Ogot is a prominent Kenyan author. She is a pioneer female writer of short stories that cover the religious, social, economic, and cultural sphere of Kenya. Her stories are mainly set after Kenya acquired its independence or they are stories...

Although the title may sound uncannily appropriate to a children's book, in fact, The Brave Cowboy is very much a book for parents and other grown-up enamored with the mythology of the Old West. Abbey’s second novel reveals a considerable aptitude...