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.
The Stone Carvers was written by Jane Urquhart and published in 2001. Urquhart’s works often include themes of art and the characters are often artists. In The Stone Carvers, the protagonist is not only an artist but also a woman whose name is...
A Serious Proposal to the Ladies is a 1694 book by English writer Mary Astell which outlines Astell’s plan for an all-female college where women would receive a religious and secular education on par with that of their male counterparts. Astell’s...
"Pyramid of Bone" is a poem written by Thylias Moss and published in 1989. Most of Moss's poems discuss race and gender, but "Lessons From A Mirror", part of "Pyramid of Bone", discusses other sad aspects of life. The poem talks about what it is...
There is an old saying about how some people may only do one thing, but do it well. Such is the case with Thucydides. As a historian, he may have been more than a touch obsessive: his entire historical literature output comes down to a single...
Judith Guest is an American novelist born in Detroit, Michigan in 1936. She studied English and psychology at the University of Michigan, and these two areas of study come heavily into play throughout her book, Ordinary People.
Guest’s novel...
On Chesil Beach is a novel written by Ian McEwan about the changes in society on an example of the newlyweds, who had married in the early 1960s, before the sexual revolution. The novel was published in Britain in 2007.
An English society of the...
My Sister's Keeperis a novel written by Jodi Picoult in 2004 and revolves around a 13-year old girl called Anna Fitzgerald who was born for the purpose of aiding her sister in her recovery from leukemia by donating cells and organs.
Kate...
Monkeys, written by Susan Minot, was published in 1986. It takes place on the coast of New England. The Vincent children have all lived a neglected life, but as a family, they pull together to become one again. This narrative is about how they...
To fully appreciate the poetry of Mary Oliver, one needs to understand what drives her to compose verse. Fortunately, she has made this easy to accomplish by putting everything into succinct perspective: “I write poems for a stranger who will be...
Eva Hoffman was born Ewa Wydra in Krakow, Poland in 1945, just two months after the end of World War II. Her parents were Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust by escaping to Ukraine and hiding in a forest bunker, later being hidden for another...
Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler was the sixth collection of poetry published by American writer Thylias Moss in 1998. Moss was born in 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio to parents of mixed racial identities. Her childhood included instances of witnessing...
Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology is a book of poetry written by Albert Goldbarth and released in 1991. The work was a critical success, and Goldbarth was awarded the National Books Critic Award the same year. 10 years later he would repeat this...
Published in 1959, Goodbye, Columbus: And Five Short Stories was Philip Roth's first book. It contains one novella (Goodbye, Columbus) and five short stories, all of which are semi-autobiographical in nature.
Goodbye, Columbus itself takes place...
Kathy Acker was an American novelist born on April 18, 1947 in New York City. As a child, she felt restrained by societal expectations and gender norms; Ackner never fit into the typical mold of how a “lady” should act. In turn, she grew obsessed...
Alan Lightman’s decision to turn his talent toward fiction after a career marked by non-fiction examinations of physics and astronomy is probably itself worthy of a non-fiction tale. While staying firmly within his area of comfort within the...
The Diaries of Adam & Eve were, at first, two separate short stories written by American author, Mark Twain. The first one, Adam's Diary, was first published in 1893 and the second one, Eve's Diary, in 1906. The two tales were reunited in...
The Demon in the Freezer is a non-fiction book about the metaphorical "demon" referring to biological weapons and the US government's measures to counter them. It was published in 2002 and was written by journalist Richard Preston.
The book...
The Cyberiad is a collection of science fiction stories by Stanislaw Lem, a Polish author who wrote them in the 60's, even though it was already 1974 by the time the were translated into English from their original Polish.
As far as the science...
Joanne Harris is the author of Chocolat, the first installment of her Chocolat book series, which consists of three books. The second and third books are The Girl with No Shadow and Peaches for Father Francis. This romance fiction novel was first...
Written in 1980, Animal Dreams is a novel written by American writer Barbara Kingsolver. Like in her previous novels, Animal Dreams focuses on the relationship between man and nature and it also focuses of the idea of social justice. Her novels...
Breaking Dawn is the last installment in the Twilight Saga – the love triangle between a human, vampire and werewolf/shape-shifter. The cover of the novel is a metaphor of Bella’s journey. She began as the weakest member on the chessboard – the...
Windward Heights is a novel written by the French author Maryse Conde and published in the year 2008. The author writes in predominately in French but her books have been translated in various languages and made available to the public. Maryse is...
Where Angels Fear to Tread is a novel written by E. M. Forster. The title comes from a line in Alexander Pope’s An Essay of Criticism: “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread”, but at first Forster wanted to title his novel Monteriano, after...
Tonio Kroger is a novel written by Thomas Mann and published in 1903. This work was the first one that Mann published. Tonio Kroger creates a pair with Death in Venice, a more famous story, because both tell of an artist’s life and his travels....