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 Candy Shop War is a novel for children published by Brandon Mull in 2007. Mull is also the author of the very popular Fablehaven series of YA novels as well as its sequel series, Dragonwatch. The candy shop’s fictional setting of Colson is...
Aliens (1986) is James Cameron's follow-up to Ridley Scott's classic Alien (1976). It tells the story of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley, who is rescued by a team after being in hypersleep for over 50 years. After, Ripley is tasked with helping marines...
Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code is the third book in the Artemis Fowl series, which consists of eight science fiction, fantasy, and children’s literature books. The series was written by the Irish author Eoin Colfer and was released between...
First published in 1929, Tyrant Banderas is a critically-acclaimed novel by Spanish author and dramatists Ramon del Valle-Inclan. It was one of the most influential works in the Latin American genre of the "dictator novel", which consisted of...
2016's Arrival is based on a novella called "Story of Your Life" (1998) by Ted Chiang. Like the novella, the film tells the story of linguist Dr. Louise Banks (played by Amy Adams) and physicist Ian Donnelly (played by Jeremy Renner) as they try...
David Bezmozgis published Natasha and Other Stories as his debut story collection. This story follows the family of the Bermans, who are Russian Jews, as they flee from Riga to Toronto. It highlights the struggles that immigrants experience as...
Aspects of the Novel is a literary work based on a series of lectures delivered by E. M. Forester at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1927. It is a well-structured book that redefines the formula of a successful novel. He discusses seven vital...
Talent versus luck: this was a question that plagued Stephen King after his initial success as an author. How much of his success was due to talent, and how much due to the cult following he had amassed, and the fact that people bought his books...
Antigonick is Anne Carson's translation of Sophocles' Antigone. The project, which is a comic-book presentation of the classic Greek work was collaborated on by Robert Currie with drawings by Bianca Stone. Caron's interpretation quite has a biting...
Daniel Magariel's One of the Boys (2017) is a depressing story. Set in New Mexico, One of the Boys tells the story of two young boys (brothers) who have to deal with the love they have for their abusive and terrible father. The book details how...
Fires in the Mirror is a one-person play composed of monologues excerpted from interviews conducted by the author, Anne Deavere Smith. The play is part of Smith's project On the Road: A Search for the American Character, which shares a name with...
Written in 1999 by Edmund Morris, Dutch is a biography of the fortieth President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Though Morris wrote the book alongside Reagan, readers often note how it does not necessarily relate much to the actual term of...
C.P. Cavafy is a unique poet with a distinctive writing style. His poems are simple, straight forward and direct as Cavafy does not use tools like metaphors and other poetic devices. Because of his unique way of writing he has been categorized as...
Written by the Australian playwright Louis Nowra, Cosi is a play first performed in 1992. The play is set in a 1971 mental hospital, and is the sequel to Summer of the Aliens. The play contains some non-fictional elements, but for the most part is...
Love is a strong feeling of intense affection whose cause of sensation remains a mystery to humans. However, in The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis explores four types of love, namely, Storge-affection love, Phileo-friendship love, Eros-romantic love, and...
Richard Ford, born in 1944, is an American writer and editor. Before settling on a literary career, Ford worked a variety of jobs, briefly studied law and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. The publication of his novel The Sportswriter in...
The Hope Chest is a novel by Rukhsana Ahmad, published in November, 1996. At 307 pages, it tells the story of three women: Ruth, Rani, and Reshma, whose lives intertwine in different ways, connecting their separate journeys together.
Ahmad talks...
Beauty and Sadness is one of the first novels written about gay romance originally in Japan and was written by the known Japanese author and poet Yasunari Kawabata. It was published in 1965 by the Central Public Opinion Company (Japanese: 中央公論新社)...
Imagine, if you will, the scenario of a President of the United States of America committing an indescribable sexual indiscretion in the Oval Office of the White House, only to find that the whole of America knows about it....
The movie was never...
Paradox and Dream and Other Essays is a collection of essays published by American author and essayist John Steinbeck. The main essay focused upon is Paradox and Dream, in which Steinbeck basically describes how he looks down on the American...
D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation is no doubt a long film, but it's also very important in film history. It covers two story lines: 1) the United States Civil War and 2) Reconstruction. Both follow the Stoneman family in one way or another.
...
Hiroshima mon amour is a story of two past-time lovers told through a long (36 hours) conversation. It is a French drama movie written by Marguerite Duras and directed by Alain Resnais. It was published in 1959, originally in French which runs for...
La Jetée is a science fiction story performed in a series of mostly still photos explained through a narrator. The featurette was made by Chris Marker and was first released in 1962, distributed by Argos Films. Even though the story only lasts for...
First acted out in 1960, Happy Days is a classic play by Samuel Beckett. The play follows the stories of Winnie and Willie, two people that live simple (yet confusing), happy lives. This play is seen by viewers and critics alike as being very...