Newest Study Guides

In her English-language debut, Mexican author Fernanda Melchor tells the story of a young girl in sixth grade named Fig, who so desperately wants to understand her mentally ill father. Drawing from books about acclaimed artist Vincent Van Gogh,...

In her debut novel entitled Conversations with Friends (2017), Irish author Sally Rooney tells the story of two female college students who start a rather strange and unorthodox relationship they start with a seemingly happily married couple. Both...

Written by Chilean author Roberto Bolano, The Savage Detectives tells the story of the search for a Mexican poet from the 1920s called Cesárea Tinajero. The novel is set in the late 1970s and chronicles two Latin poets' search for the Tinajero...

In Circe (2018), American author Madeline Miller tells the story of Homer's The Odyssey from the point of view of the eponymous Circe. Although Circe is a relatively strange and abnormal child - she's neither pretty like her mother nor powerful...

In what is one of his many children's books, British writer Roald Dahl's George's Marvelous Medicine (1981) tells, as the book's title suggests, George's story. Specifically, the book follows George as he has to deal with his cantankerous and...

Over the course of his long and illustrious career, British author Roald Dahl wrote approximately two dozen books. Among those books was The Twits (1979), which is one of Dahl's many children's books. It follows a couple called Mr. and Mrs Twit,...

Existentialism Is a Humanism is a piece of literature published in 1946 and produced by Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. It was based on his famous lecture given at Club Maintenant in Paris, on 29...

Written by Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics (originally published in 1677) is a philosophical treatise which covers and attempts to apply the method of Euclid. In that vein, de Spinoza discusses issues like the nature of God, how man's mind works,...

The birth of James Joyce on February 2, 1882 was perfectly timed to introduce him to the literary world at the dawn of the twentieth century. Joyce would go on to dominate century by writing what is routinely voted its greatest novel, Ulysses. In...

Although The Old Curiosity Shop is one of Charles Dickens' least-known novels, it is certainly one of his most interesting. The Old Curiosity Shop follows Little Nell Trent, who lives with his grandfather in - as the title suggests - an old...

In his seminal work The Eve of Destruction: How 1965 Transformed America, author and acclaimed historian James T. Patterson argues that it was the year 1965 - not 1968 or 1969 as many others have suggested - that marked a turning point in America....

Although she was perhaps best-known for her novels (the most famous of which are The Stone Carvers and The Underpainter), Canadian author Jane Urquhart has written countless short stories. Urquhart's best and most-famous works were collected in a...

Son of the Revolution (originally published in 1984) is author Liang Heng's autobiography which chronicles his life - primarily his childhood and young adulthood - in Mao Zedong's China during his so-called Cultural Revolution. In the book, Heng...

In her collection of eight short stories entitled Vampires in the Lemon Grove, author Karen Russell writes of fascinating people and their equally interesting stories. One story, for example, follows a community of girls who are held captive in a...

In her collection of feminist poems entitled The Octopus Museum, author Brenda Shaugnessy discusses complex and relevant themes through the lens of a dystopian future in which octopuses reign supreme. Humans, on the other hand, are no longer the...

American author Anthony Marra's collection of short stories entitled The Tsar of Love and Techno (2015) tells the stories of a wide array of diverse characters - all of whom live in Russia in times periods ranging from 1937 to the Present Day....

Dennis Johnson's novel, Tree of Smoke, is set in Vietnam during the years between 1963 and 1970. The book centers around its protagonist, Skip Sands, who joins the C.I.A. and is posted to Vietnam, where he works for his uncle, Colonel Francis X....

Written by American author Denis Johnson, The Name of the World (2001) tells the story of a man named Michael Reed, a man who is haunted by the death of his wife and child. After their life, he has spent his life in an incredibly numb state and...

Irmgard Keun's novel, After Midnight, takes place in a Germany that is already darkened under the shadow of Adolf Hitler, but not yet as dark as it will become as war approaches. Because of this, many of the characters in the book are on a...

Logan (2017) is Hugh Jackman's final outing in the role of Wolverine - it is truly his swansong. Taking inspiration from the "Old Man Logan" comic book series, the film follows an aging - and dying - Wolverine, who is trying to earn enough money...

Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) is a documentary like any other. Covering the British front of WWI, audiences experience the war through the eyes - and ears - of those who experienced it firsthand. To tell the stories of those who...

Written by prolific Australian playwright Alex Buzo, Norm and Ahmed (1968) was the subject of a tremendous amount of controversy when it was released. Originally, the play ended with the line "f*cking boong," an ethnic slur. The actor who used...

Directed and written by Rian Johnson (best known for Looper and Star Wars: The Last Jedi), Knives Out (2019) is a mystery following Ana De Armas’ Marta, a nurse who is tasked with caring for and accompanying Christopher Plummer’s Harlan, a mystery...

Written by the prolific English playwright George Lillo, The London Merchant (first performed in 1731) tells the darkly tragic story of the downfall of a young man because he has associated himself with a prostitute named Sarah Millwood. Lillo's...