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.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson is a book detailing how the caste system in the USA controls people throughout history. The author argues that America suffers from inequality and injustices since enslavement started in...
“The Moon and the Yew Tree” is a poem Sylvia Plath wrote in October 1961, shortly before her death, amid poverty and a deteriorating marriage. It was published in her second and posthumous book of poetry, Ariel, in 1965. The poem is in four...
"anyone lived in a pretty how town" is a poem written by E. E. Cummings, whose name is often styled as e. e. cummings. The poem was first published in 1940 and tells the story of a small town, where the residents live a reliable but monotonous...
"Shiloh" is a poem by Herman Melville that depicts the aftermath of a notably bloody Civil War battle. The poem was published in 1886 as part of Melville's poetry collection about the conflict, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War. Alongside the...
Louisa May Alcott is yet another of those hardy and hearty New England writers of the 19th century who never married or had children. When Louisa’s sister May passed away at an early age, however, Louisa took in her niece Lulu (named after her...
One day in 1897 a man working as a coroner’s assistant in New York City was approached by his eight-year-old daughter, Virginia, and found himself coming face-to-face with one of the most difficult questions the father of such a young child might...
“’Twas the Night Before Christmas” is the popularly known title of a poem actually published in 1823 as “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” before transforming into its longtime official title “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” That publication was...
Published in 2018, The Poet X is a young adult realistic fiction novel by Dominican-American poet and author Elizabeth Acevedo. The novel—specifically the protagonist Xiomara, who goes by "X"—draws on Acevedo's own experience growing up in New...
Apples Never Fall is the 2021 follow-up to Liane Moriarty’s very successful 2018 novel Nine Perfect Strangers. Like that bestseller, it has four-hundred-plus pages of domestic Sturm und Drang focusing on interrelationships among family members...
When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice is a memoir by American author and activist Terry Tempest Williams. Published in 2012 by Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the book explores the strange journals her mother left...
The Sound of My Voice is a novel by Scottish poet, lyricist, and award-winning novelist Ron Butlin. It was Published in 1987 by Canongate Publishing Limited.
The novel is set in Glasgow, Scotland and follows Morris Magellan’s life in the suburbs....
When Charley Met Emma is a fictional children's book that focuses of the story between Charley, a young boy, and Emma, a young girl who is in a wheelchair. When Charley first sees Emma at the playground, he is a little bit scared because he has...
Hell of a Book, a novel written by Jason Mott, tells a story about an author who is on his way to tour the US promoting his work. The novel unfolds in various directions: contemplation of oneself, the narrator’s self-reflection and sense of unease...
Revolution in Our Time is a non-fiction work originally published on November 8, 2021 by Kekla Magoon. The piece gives an account of the Black Panther Party, a group of African American human rights fighters and revolutionaries. The book details...
The Story of Tom Brennan is a young-adult novel by Australian author J.C. Burke. In the wake of a horrible accident, 17-year-old Tom Brennan must deal with the imprisonment of his brother and his move to a new town. Although he struggles to keep...
The Legend of Auntie Po is a graphic historical fiction novel written and illustrated by Shing Yin Khor and published on June 15, 2021. The book follows the story of a queer 13-year-old named Mei, who is working in the United States in 1885. Life...
“Last Night at the Telegraph Club” is a novel written by Malinda Lo, and tells the story about a young Chinese girl called Lily Hu living in San Francisco during the 1950s. The novel is a young adult fiction heavily leaning on romance.
The main...
House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed is a novel by Sara Gay Forden. Published in 2001 by Custom House publishing, it explores the Gucci family, their fashion dynasty, and a gruesome murder that defined this...
Stuntboy in the Meantime is a graphic Young Adult novel by Jason Reynolds which was originally published on November 9, 2021. The book tells the story of Portico Reeves, a mild-mannered school student whose secret identity is Stuntboy. Portico...
Blue Jasmine is an American film by filmmaker Woody Allen. Released in 2013, the comedic drama was theatrically distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. The film explores the life of a formerly rich socialite who has to live with her working-class...
It may be only a coincidence that Hollywood’s obsession with horror icons began to move in earnest from vampires to zombies around the time that Let the Right One In was released in 2008, but it sure doesn’t feel like mere coincidence. In fact,...
"HG Wells' novel "Tono-Bungay" was published in 1909. The novel is a satirical social commentary on the changing society and the impact of industrialization and capitalism on the lives of ordinary people in England during the late 19th and early...
Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino (2008) is a drama film about Walt Kowalski, a widowed Korean War veteran who becomes an unlikely hero to his Hmong-American neighbors.
Set in Highland Park, Michigan, the film depicts the...
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s first novel, Purple Hibiscus, was widely acclaimed when it was published in 2003. Shortlisted for and awarded several prestigious prizes, Purple Hibiscus was praised for capturing a character and a nation on the cusp of...