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.
Crimes and Misdemeanors is a 1989 from Woody Allen film that appears near the end of his fecund period of critical and commercial success which stretches from Annie Hall in 1977 to Sweet and Lowdown 22 years later. During that period Allen...
The debut novel of American author Michael Thomas, Man Gone Down has been featured in a multitude of prominent literary journals such as The New York Times. It also won the International Dublin Literary Award in 2009, one of the richest writing...
Written by Stanley Cavell, an American philosopher and current professor at Harvard, Must We Mean What We Say? is a collection of a philosophical essays centering around the themes of language use, metaphors, skepticism, sarcasm, and tragedy. The...
Specimen Days is a novel by American author Michael Cunninghan published in 2005. It is primarily based on the poems of Walt Whitman, and the title is based off one of Whitman's works. The story is divided into three separate sections: one taking...
Scarlet Song is a novel by notable author Mariama Bâ published in 1986 (2 years after her death). The novel, about a couple with ethical and cultural differences, garnered international and critical attention, and was nominated for a number of...
The Mystic Masseur is a contemporary fiction novel by V.S. Naipaul published in 1957 in England. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1958 and was also adapted into a full-length film of the same name by the film company Merchant Ivory.
This...
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage is a non-fiction biographical account written by Alfred Lansing. The book mainly chronicles the journey of Sir Ernest Shackleton as his led the other 28 members of the shipwrecked Endurance on a crossing...
Joseph Boyden is a Canadian author born on October 31, 1966 in Willowdale, Ontario. After graduating from Brebeuf College School, he attended York University and the University of New Orleans to study creative writing. Afterward, he published two...
The third novel of prominent Canadian author Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindnes is an award-winning book that focuses around the themes of family, sacrifice, and self-amendment.
A Complicated Kindness is set in a fictional Mennonite town called...
In April 1716 Mary Wortley Montagu’s husband was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to the court of Turkey. She and her family arrived in Adrianapole in March of the next year only to receive word from England that he was to return in September....
Still searching for a way to support himself entirely with his writing in 1925, Hart Crane showed up at the farm that poet Allan Tate shared with novelist Caroline Gordon. In between drinking bouts and various other assorted indulgences, Crane set...
Ethics for the New Millennium is a book of practical secular ethics for life. Written by the 14th Dalai Lama, it was published in 2011. This book is designed to be applicable to any person who picks it up, whether they are religious or not. In...
Gandhi: Selected Political Writing is the collection of Mahatma Gandhi’s work. Gandhi was a political leader of India, who led the freedom movement till independence was achieved by that country. His non-violent means of achieving his goals...
Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Kevin Young is one of the most interesting poets to come out of the United States of America in recent times. Citing influences as varied as the Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson and the artist...
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror is the title of both the anchor poem and the collection in which it is found. The title poem was inspired by references the painting of the same name by Renaissance artist Francesco Mazzola. The collection pulled...
“Some Trees” is a poem that John Ashbery wrote and then published in 1956. The subject seems to be about trees, as the title suggests, but the meanings of those trees go much deeper than the plants alone. The trees can also actually be a metaphor...
Dictee is a 1982 novel by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, a South Korean-American author. It is considered her best, most prominent work, focusing on the experiences of specific iconic, powerful women over the years, as well as a more personal part delving...
Derek Walcott published his collection Midsummer in 1984. The collection is a sequence consisting of 54 poems, one for each year of his life at the time of publication. The title references the narrative conceit of the novel: a poetic examination...
The Arrivants was written by award-winning author Edward Kamau Brathwaite. This creative work explores the implications of black life in the modern world. More specifically, it's a poetic trilogy that highlights the natural beauty and wealth of...
Pushing the boundaries of poetic expression, Zong! transcends the limitations of conventional archives and verses, immersing readers in a profound and captivating exploration of the past. Authored by the accomplished Canadian writer M. NourbeSe...
Flowering Judas, and Other Stories is Katherine Anne Porter’s first collection of published short stories, originally released in 1930 and then revised with the addition of a few new stories five years later. Since that initial publication, one of...
The Difference Engine is a 1990 novel by both William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It is an "alternative history" book, and is notable for how it pioneered and helped establish the steampunk genre. The novel was nominated for a number of awards,...
Tom Rob Smith is an English novelist born in South London, England in 1979. He graduated from St John’s College in 2001 and subsequently studied creative writing at Parvin University in Italy. Before publishing his debut novel, Child 44, Smith...
One of the most respected American writers of the twentieth century, Elizabeth Bishop (1911 – 1979) is predominantly known as a poet. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956 for her poetry collection Cold Springs, and the National Book Award in 1970...
