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.
Love and Vertigo is a novel by Malaysian-born Australian novelist Hsu-Ming Teo. It was published in 2000 and was the recipient of the Australian Vogel's Literary Award.
The plot of Love and Vertigo revolves around a young Australian woman named...
Tik-Tok is a satirical science fiction novel published in 1983, written by renowned sci-fi author John Sladek. Sladek, who died in 2000, was known for his quirky and entertaining writing which has humor and cynicism in equal measure. Both are...
To understand Audre Lorde's poetry, one just has to be sincere. She's not writing anything incredibly profound, but she is writing the truth. Based on her own experiences, Lorde writes to dispel the lies which people tell themselves. She was a...
Vikram Chandra is an Indian-American writer born in New Delhi in 1961. In India, there was not a great deal of opportunity to break out as a writer, so he decided to pursue his bachelor’s degree at Pomona College in California. Afterward, he...
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is a 1999 collection of short stories written by American author Nathan Englander. Englander is a writer who has published four books and won several prizes, international and local, for his excellent work. His...
David and Goliath is a non-fiction psychology book written by Canadian author Malcolm Gladwell. The book was first published on September 1, 2011. Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist born in England but lived most of his life and spent his university...
Free Love and Other Stories is an eclectic short story collection by British author Ali Smith. Published as Smith's first book in 1995, it won the Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award.
Free Love and Other Stories contains 12 short stories,...
A Single Man is a novel by English-American author Christopher Isherwood written in 1964. The novel is set in Southern California during 1962 and tells the story of George, a British professor working at a university in Los Angeles. George is...
A Single Man is a movie directed by Tom Ford based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood. It is told from the point of view of George, (Colin Firth), who is single for a number of reasons. He is single because he is not married...
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a 1958 film directed by Richard Brooks. The movie is an adaptation of the play of the same name by legendary playwright Tennessee Williams which earned the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955. The movie met with success both...
Tobacco Road is a novel written by Erskine Caldwell. The novel was first published in 1932, set in the rural Georgia which the author knew well. It features the memorable (if not entirely pleasant) character Jeeter Lester as well as his wife, Ada,...
Originally beginning his career as a pornography writer in the 1970's, Hanif Kureishi is now an acclaimed British playwright and novelist. His stories demonstrate remarkable prose and narrative grace, with TIME naming him one of the most brilliant...
Written by prominent United States author Mary Hunter Austin, The Land of Little Rain is a novel published in 1903. The book is essentially a compilation of a series of essays lyrically exploring the various aspects of the American Southwest.
The...
Le Bel Inconnu is literally translated to "The Fair Unknown" and it is a popular folk tale that has strong ties to the legends of King Arthur, telling the popular story of a young man of questionable heritage who becomes a key player in polite...
Are You Somebody? is a deeply personal memoir written by the Irish journalist and author Nuala O’Faolain. First published in 1996, the book quickly became a bestseller and remains one of the most powerful accounts of an Irish woman’s life in the...
The Buddha in the Attic is the follow-up novel by Julie Otsuka's prize-winning novel When The Emperor Was Divine. This novel tells the story of a group of young Japanese women brought over from their home country to San Francisco as what were...
Samuel Johnson, also known as "Dr. Johnson," was born in 1709. His father, Michael Johnson, was a poor bookseller. He was born ill with tuberculosis. He faced many physical illnesses, such as being almost blind in one eye and deaf in one ear....
Written by British author Matt Ridley and published in 1999, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapter, or, Genome for short, is a popular science publication. The book has 23 chapters because of the 22 human chromosomes as well as an...
In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women is a collection of short stories written by the famous author Alice Walker. Alice Walker is an American writer, poet, and activist. She has written many books about black people and their sufferings. She...
Ten is a horror-mystery novel by noted Young-Adult author Gretchen McNeil. It was published in 2012 and since then has been translated into multiple languages.
The protagonists of Ten are Meg and Minnie, two best friends who are eager to attend a...
Bruce Dawe was in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia in 1930. Due to his family's relative lack of wealth, he was unable to complete his primary education. At the age of 16, he took various jobs to help support his family, including work at a mill...
Soren Kierkegaard composed Fear and Trembling under the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio. He wrote it to discuss the stories from Genesis, and is in reference to the book of Philippians. Part of the inspiration for the book was an effort to...
The Yellow Arrow is a short allegorical story by Russian author Victor Pelvin, known for his postmodernist style and his method of incorporating pop culture and philosophy into his works. Pelvin's The Yellow Arrow has been re-published multiple...
Heda Margoulis Kovaly originally published her memoir under the title "The Victors and The Vanquished" in Canada in 1973. A second version, "I Do Not Want To Remember", was published later the same year in the U.K. The memoir tells of the years...
