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 Fabliaux is a book of poems composed somewhere between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. The exact authors of the poems are unknown, and it is widely thought that different authors contributed to the work. The Fabliaux is erotic in nature,...
Sea of Poppies" by Amitav Ghosh is an extremely well-researched and thought-provoking novel that delves into the complex history of the opium trade in 19th-century India and China. Ghosh's mastery of language, depth of knowledge, and nuanced...
Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian author born on October 27, 1931 in Kafr Tahla, Egypt. She demonstrated a natural intelligence and poise at a young age as well as an interest in the medical science. She attended Cairo University to become a doctor....
Richard Selzer is an American doctor and writer born on June 24, 1928 in Troy, New York. At a young age, he demonstrated an intense interest in biology and psychology. Thus, after graduating from Union College, he attended Albany Medical College...
Haifaa al-Mansour wrote and directed the feature length Saudi film. It is culturally significant as she became the first Saudi female to direct a feature length picture, and Wadja is the first feature shot entirely in Saudi Arabia. The film...
West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story is a memoir written by author Tamim Ansary. Ansary is an Afghan-American columnist and writer who lived in America after finishing high school. His most famous book was West of Kabul, East...
The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices and Men is Lucrezia Marinella’s 1600 response to an essay published the year previous year by Giuseppe Passi. That essay, The Defects of Women, outlined in a particularly misogynistic...
World War One was documented in poetry by young men at the front who were survived by their poetry; what they experienced spoke about their experiences for them and the likes of Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, and Wilfred Owen were immortalized...
Beauty and the Beast and Other Tales includes a story of Beauty and the Beast that was extended by the author. This version is the most well known, the plot of it is used for most movies covering the story.
Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont is a...
Michael Lewis is an American non-fiction writer born on October 15, 1960 in New Orleans, Louisiana. He attended Princeton University where he majored in art history, but due to the limited availability of jobs in this field, he decided to become...
Michael Chabon is an American author born on May 24, 1963 in Washington D.C. Both his mother and father were lawyers, but despite his parents’ career paths, Chabon decided to venture into the realm of creative writing. After dropping out of...
Originating from Colombia, 'Best Worst American' is Juan Martinez's debut collection of stories. Published in February 2017, the collection consists of 24 stories which are stunning in their breadth - some surrealist, some fantastical, others...
Ai Ogawa (commonly referenced as "Ai") is a great American poet. Born on October 21, 1947, she has won numerous awards, such as The National Book Award. Born under the name Florence Anthony, she was born in Albany, Texas. She has many...
It doesn’t get much more definitively Chicano for an American writer than to be born and raised in East L.A. Just that very term “East L.A.” has the ability—thanks to pop culture portrayals in the media—to conjure up images of Hispanic culture...
Persepolis 2 is the second novel written by Marjane Satrapi. It is the second of the set of her memoir and autobiography. The book contains drawings and graphics. Satrapi is a French girl born in Iran and witnessed the Islamic Revolution. She...
Don DeLillo is an American author born on November 20, 1936 in New York City. During his childhood, DeLillo was not interested in writing, but his apathy toward literature changed when he took on a job as a parking attendant. The work was so...
A source of controversy as much today as it was when it was first published in 2001, Michel Vinaver's play '11 september 2001/11 September 2001' focuses on the tragic events of that fateful day, which saw the attack by terrorists on the World...
The Last Unicorn is a fantasy novel written by the American author Peter Beagle. Published in 1968, the novel had a short novelette following it, Two Hearts. The novel, originally published by Viking Press, is about a unicorn that believes there...
The Red Pony a novel comprised of four separate short stories sharing character and setting and essentially the same period, but which do not connect smoothly to each other in the fashion of chapters in a traditional novel.
The four stories which...
The Iron Heel is a dystopian novel written by Jack London and published in 1908. What, you may ask, is a dystopian novel? It is actually a cautionary tale; a dystopian novel pains a picture of an initially idealized futuristic society that becomes...
If you wake up in hospital with not knowing how you arrived there and the events of the previous month are a complete and absolute mystery, you could be forgiven for thinking that you have recently enjoyed the mother of all alcoholic binges, or at...
Hawksmoor is a mystery novel written by the English author Peter Ackroyd. It was first published in 1985. Ackroyd's work mostly covers a societal issue or historical recaps. He won many awards for his literary works. Hawksmoor mainly narrates the...
Across The Nightingale Floor is the first novel in Liann Hearn's "Tales of the Otori" Trilogy. It was first published in 2002. It is set in a fictional feudal system and tells the story of a fifteen year old girl named Kaede and a sixteen year old...
Rumble Young Man Rumble is a 2014 novel by Dante Zuniga-West. It centers around a young man, Quinton, who becomes disillusioned with his life and joins a group of aspiring Muay-Thai fighters.
The story revolves around Quinton, a young man who...