"B. Wordsworth" is Trinidadian-British author V.S. Naipaul's short story first published in 1959 in his acclaimed collection entitled Miguel Street. The short story is told from Naipaul's point of view, and explores his relationship (in the story,...

It would be fair to say that Ralph Ellison is best known for his 1952 novel Invisible Man (not to be confused with H.G. Wells' 1897 novel The Invisible Man). Some historians have called "The Black Ball," one of author Ralph Ellison's most...

"At Hiruharama" is acclaimed English author Penelope Fitzgerald's short story first published as a part of her short story collection entitled The Means of Escape, which was first published in 2000, when Fitzgerald was 84. Fitzgerald's short story...

The Drought was initially published in 1964 as The Burning World. It was retitled as The Drought and published by Berkley Books in 1965. In the early 1960s, at the start of his career, author J.G. Ballard wrote a series of science fiction novels....

Memory of Water is Finnish novelist Emmi Itäranta's debut novel, published in 2014 by HarperCollins. Itäranta's novel is set in a dystopian future in which water has become scarce because of climate change caused by humanity. As a result of the...

Rick Yancey's The Monstrumologist was initially published by Simon and Schuster in September 2009. A horror novel written for young adults, Yancey's novel is presented as entries in the diary of a young man and orphan named Will Henry, the...

Gail Giles' Shattering Glass was initially published by Roaring Book Press in 2001. The novel is set over the course of one school year and is told from the perspective of a high school senior named Young Stewart, who is a member of the "in crowd"...

Italian director Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (or "The Sweet Life") was released in 1960. Set across seven days and nights and in Rome, Italy, La Dolce Vita follows a young man named Marcello Rubini. Disillusioned with his life, Marcello walks...

Og Mandino's The Greatest Salesman in the World was originally published in 1968. It tells the story of Hafid, a poor camel boy that finds success and begins to live a life of abundance. Through charting Hafid's beginnings, his initial success,...

The Greatest Gift was written in 1943 and published in 1944 by author Philip Van Doren Stern. It tells the story of George Pratt, a depressed man who considers suicide. George makes a plan to commit the act and makes his way to a bridge. However,...

British author Raymond Briggs has written two Christmas classics: The Snowman and Father Christmas. The latter of those novels, Father Christmas, was originally published in 1973 by a small publishing house called Hamish Hamilton. It is, according...

“A Christmas Memory” was initially published in Mademoiselle, a woman's magazine, in 1956. Capote's short story was then reprinted in Capote's 1963 collection The Selected Writings of Truman Capote. Since then, it has been reprinted and...

For author John Grisham, the Christmas season is a foreign concept. Grisham is best known for his thrillers that are set in the legal system. Skipping Christmas, which was published in 2001, is a departure from Grisham's usual fare. Grisham's...

The Twelve Terrors of Christmas, which was written by John Updike and illustrated by Edward Gorey, was first published in 1992 in the New Yorker magazine. The novella was subsequently published in book form in 1994 by Pomegranate Communications.

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Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express was first published in 1985. It tells the story of a young boy—who was inspired by the author's own childhood—who is one day welcomed aboard a magical train bound for the North Pole. The boy is promised that...

The Snowman is a picture book by English illustrator Raymond Briggs. It was published in 1978 by Random House. The book follows a boy building a snowman that comes alive at midnight. They play all night long, careful not to wake up the parents....

Alan Gratz is a fictional author, and he has made headlines with famous titles of his work, including Prisoner and War on Terror. The latest is The Code of Honor, a fictional novel set in Phoenix, Arizona, and is told from the third person...

Jennifer L. Holm's The Lion of Mars, which was published in early 2021, aims to tackle what life on Mars would be like for those that eventually come to live on the planet. The Lion of Mars is a work of fiction; it tells the story of a young man...

"The Widow's Might", author Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story originally published in Forerunner magazine in 1911, is about a widow named Mrs. McPherson. That widow, much to the shock of her three children, has been running her late husband's...

In 1977, Canadian author Margaret Atwood published Dancing Girls, which would be her first of many short story collections. In sum, that collection totaled 14 stories. And though "When It Happens" was not the best-known short story contained in...

Janet Frame's The Reservoir is a collection of short stories, sketches, poem fragments, and short-form memoirs. Each story in the collection is set in New Zealand, the country in which Frame was born.

Frame has long been fascinated with human...