Newest Study Guides

Written by Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics (originally published in 1677) is a philosophical treatise which covers and attempts to apply the method of Euclid. In that vein, de Spinoza discusses issues like the nature of God, how man's mind works,...

The birth of James Joyce on February 2, 1882 was perfectly timed to introduce him to the literary world at the dawn of the twentieth century. Joyce would go on to dominate century by writing what is routinely voted its greatest novel, Ulysses. In...

Although The Old Curiosity Shop is one of Charles Dickens' least-known novels, it is certainly one of his most interesting. The Old Curiosity Shop follows Little Nell Trent, who lives with his grandfather in - as the title suggests - an old...

In his seminal work The Eve of Destruction: How 1965 Transformed America, author and acclaimed historian James T. Patterson argues that it was the year 1965 - not 1968 or 1969 as many others have suggested - that marked a turning point in America....

Although she was perhaps best-known for her novels (the most famous of which are The Stone Carvers and The Underpainter), Canadian author Jane Urquhart has written countless short stories. Urquhart's best and most-famous works were collected in a...

Son of the Revolution (originally published in 1984) is author Liang Heng's autobiography which chronicles his life - primarily his childhood and young adulthood - in Mao Zedong's China during his so-called Cultural Revolution. In the book, Heng...

Cormac McCarthy's 2005 neo-Western novel No Country for Old Men received mixed critical reception upon its release. Critics couldn't determine how much of the novel, particularly the character of Sheriff Bell, was meant in earnest and how much of...

In her collection of eight short stories entitled Vampires in the Lemon Grove, author Karen Russell writes of fascinating people and their equally interesting stories. One story, for example, follows a community of girls who are held captive in a...

In her collection of feminist poems entitled The Octopus Museum, author Brenda Shaugnessy discusses complex and relevant themes through the lens of a dystopian future in which octopuses reign supreme. Humans, on the other hand, are no longer the...

Cathleen Ni Houlihan, written collaboratively by W.B Yeats and Lady Gregory in 1901, is a play centered around the 1798 Irish Rebellion. In the early 20th century, Ireland was still under colonial rule, and many longed for an independent Irish...

Perhaps the most well-received of T.S. Eliot’s seven plays, The Cocktail Party interpolates many essential elements from Alcestis by Euripides into a midcentury British play that takes many genre cues from British "drawing-room comedies." The play...

American author Anthony Marra's collection of short stories entitled The Tsar of Love and Techno (2015) tells the stories of a wide array of diverse characters - all of whom live in Russia in times periods ranging from 1937 to the Present Day....

Dennis Johnson's novel, Tree of Smoke, is set in Vietnam during the years between 1963 and 1970. The book centers around its protagonist, Skip Sands, who joins the C.I.A. and is posted to Vietnam, where he works for his uncle, Colonel Francis X....

Written by American author Denis Johnson, The Name of the World (2001) tells the story of a man named Michael Reed, a man who is haunted by the death of his wife and child. After their life, he has spent his life in an incredibly numb state and...

"The Ballot or the Bullet" is a groundbreaking speech given by civil rights pioneer Malcolm X on April 3 and 12, 1964. The speech was delivered twice—first at the Cory Methodist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, and second at the King Solomon Baptist...

Published in 1983, Life and Times of Michael K is a realistic fiction novel by South African author J.M. Coetzee. The book follows the story of Michael K, a poor man living in South Africa and navigating a (fictitious) civil war during the period...

First published in 1939, and considered an early indication of Eudora Welty’s promise as a leading figure in Southern realism, “Petrified Man” has gone on to be one of the most anthologized and analyzed short stories of her extensive oeuvre.

The...

Published in June 2019, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is Ocean Vuong's debut novel. Written in the style of an epistolary novel—a letter from a young Vietnamese-American man (Little Dog) to his older, illiterate mother (Rose)—the novel explores...

Irmgard Keun's novel, After Midnight, takes place in a Germany that is already darkened under the shadow of Adolf Hitler, but not yet as dark as it will become as war approaches. Because of this, many of the characters in the book are on a...

Logan (2017) is Hugh Jackman's final outing in the role of Wolverine - it is truly his swansong. Taking inspiration from the "Old Man Logan" comic book series, the film follows an aging - and dying - Wolverine, who is trying to earn enough money...

Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel American Born Chinese comprises three apparently separate storylines: the first follows a monkey deity's desire to be all-powerful; the second follows Jin Wang, a child of Chinese immigrants, as he wrestles with his...

Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) is a documentary like any other. Covering the British front of WWI, audiences experience the war through the eyes - and ears - of those who experienced it firsthand. To tell the stories of those who...

Sam Shepard wrote Buried Child, perhaps his best-known play and the play that won him the Pulitzer in 1979, while he was the playwright-in-residence at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. It is the play most widely credited with turning Shepard...

Prep is Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel. The book's plot revolves around the high-school career of Lee Fiora, a student at the fictional Ault School in Massachusetts. Unlike most prep school students, Lee comes from a middle-class background and...