Class

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea is a 2005 young adult novel by French author and translator Valérie Zenatti, first published in French as Une bouteille dans la mer de Gaza. The novel begins when seventeen-year-old Israeli Tal Levine learns about a bombing at a neighborhood café. She is moved to send a letter in a bottle, which comes into the hands of twenty-year-old Palestinian Naim al-Farjouk. Tal has included her email address and the... Read A Bottle in the Gaza Sea Summary

... Read A Brief History Of Neoliberalism Summary

A Burning by Megha Majumdar is a contemporary fiction novel that explores issues of tribalism, community, social media, and how we get ahead in a harsh world. Although the book takes place in India, its reflections on hope, humanity, and society are recognizable to all readers. The novel follows the interconnected narratives of Jivan, Lovely, and PT Sir after a terrorist attack in India. Jivan and Lovely’s chapters are narrated in first person with dialect... Read A Burning Summary

... Read Ace of Spades Summary

Originally published in 1843, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol defined and popularized quintessential Christmas tropes while condemning Victorian England’s harsh social division between the rich and poor. The Poor Laws (referenced by Scrooge in Stave 1) were England’s response to pervasive poverty; the workhouses associated with these laws subjected the desperate and destitute to demeaning conditions, and people who could not pay debts were sent to debtors’ prison—a circumstance that Dickens deals with in detail... Read A Christmas Carol Summary

... Read A Description of a City Shower Summary

... Read A Fable Summary

... Read Afro-Latina Summary

... Read After the Shot Drops Summary

A Game of Thrones is a 1996 epic fantasy novel by George R. R. Martin and is the first in his long-running A Song of Ice and Fire series. The novel introduces the audience to the fictional world of Westeros, where characters become embroiled in a complicated web of plots, conspiracies, and betrayals as they pursue power. A Game of Thrones won numerous awards on publication and was adapted for television in 2011. This guide... Read A Game of Thrones Summary

... Read Age of Vice Summary

Agnes Grey is the first novel by Anne Brontë (1820-1849), the youngest of the three celebrated Brontë sisters, who all wrote novels now considered classics of English literature. Anne drew on her experience as a clergyman’s daughter and as a governess in telling the story of a young woman looking for her place in the world. Published in 1847 under the pseudonym Acton Bell, Agnes Grey was read as an incisive commentary on the status... Read Agnes Grey Summary

... Read A Handful of Stars Summary

A Hero of Our Time is a classic work of Russian literature written by Mikhail Lermontov and published in 1840. It exemplifies the “superfluous man” trope common in later Russian literature, in which a person of great talent and genius is unable to express these talents healthily due to personal and societal circumstances of some kind. The novel was highly influential for its critique of tsarist Russian society and for its iconic antihero, who came... Read A Hero Of Our Time Summary

... Read Ahimsa Summary

SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. This one-page guide includes a plot summary and brief analysis of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things by Raj Patel.In their political polemic A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things (2017), leftwing writers Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore argue that in its... Read A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things Summary

A House for Mr. Biswas is a 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul. The story takes a postcolonial perspective of the life of a Hindu Indian man in British-owned and occupied Trinidad. Now regarded as one of Naipaul's most significant novels, A House for Mr. Biswas has won numerous awards and has been adapted as a musical, a radio drama, and a television show. This guide is written using an eBook version of the 2001... Read A House for Mr. Biswas Summary

Airborn is a 2004 science fiction young adult novel by Kenneth Oppel. It is set in an alternate universe where airships and hot air balloons have replaced airplanes as the primary mode of travel. The book has won several awards, including a Governor General's Award for children's literature, a Michael L. Printz Award honor, and a Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon award.Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the airship Aurora. One night while... Read Airborn Summary

A Man for All Seasons is a 1960 play by English playwright Robert Bolt. Though it was published in its completed form in 1960, it was originally written for radio in 1954. It was then adapted for television in 1957 before finally being rewritten for the stage. The original runs of the show in London and later New York attained critical and commercial success. In 1966, the play was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film... Read A Man For All Seasons Summary

... Read American History Summary

American Psycho is a 1991 novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis. Set in 1980s New York, the novel follows the life of a wealthy young stockbroker, the novel’s narrator, Patrick Bateman. Surrounded by a world of vapid commercialism and empty excess, Bateman begins acting on his psychopathic thoughts and impulses. His disturbance begins in his imagination. However, it quickly bleeds over into reality with Bateman committing more and more horrific murders, fueled by drug... Read American Psycho Summary

... Read American Royals Summary

Following in the literary footsteps of John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy, Philipp Meyer’s American Rust (2010) explores the catastrophic effects of economic devastation on the lives of six characters in Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley, once home to a thriving steel and coal industry (and a solid-middle class) but now populated by broken lives and shuttered businesses. The novel was a winner of the Los Angeles Times/Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, a Washington Post Top Ten... Read American Rust Summary

... Read Amerika Summary

... Read A Miracle for Breakfast Summary

... Read A Most Beautiful Thing Summary

First published in 1950, A Murder Is Announced is a mystery novel by one of the leading writers of the Golden Age of detective fiction: Agatha Christie, “Queen of Crime.” Although best known for her Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot novels, Christie also published short story collections and wrote the world’s longest-running play—The Mousetrap (1952). Her fiction has inspired numerous film and television adaptations. A Murder Is Announced was Christie’s fourth novel featuring the amateur sleuth... Read A Murder Is Announced Summary

Published in 1925, Theodore Dreiser’s realist novel An American Tragedy is one of the author’s most critically acclaimed works. Set in the 1920s in Kansas City, Chicago, and small-town New York state, the novel is the story of how Clyde Griffiths, the son of poor, itinerant preachers, kills Roberta Alden during a boat trip in the Adirondack Mountains.This guide is based on the Kindle edition published by Rosetta Books.Content Warning: This novel contains racist slurs... Read An American Tragedy Summary

... Read Anarchy, State and Utopia Summary

... Read Anatomy Summary

... Read A Night to Remember Summary

An Inspector Calls is a three-act play written by J. B. Priestley, first performed in 1947. In the play, an inspector questions a wealthy family about the death of a young woman who worked at the family’s factory. An Inspector Calls first premiered in Moscow in 1945 before showing in England. The play has been adapted for film, television, and radio, and a 1992 stage revival won a Laurence Olivier Award, a Drama Desk Award... Read An Inspector Calls Summary

Anna Karenina is Leo Tolstoy’s second novel, following War and Peace (1869). Serially published in 1877, Anna Karenina depicts the efforts of its titular character to escape an unhappy marriage to her older, civil servant husband and pursue a love affair with a young and dashing count, Alexei Vronsky. The novel is a sweeping family drama exploring Tolstoy’s interest in marriage, family, agrarian politics, and gender roles. The work is also a portrait of Russian... Read Anna Karenina Summary

... Read Annihilation of Caste Summary

“A&P” is one of John Updike’s most well-known and celebrated short stories, first published in The New Yorker on July 22, 1961, and later appearing in the author’s short story collection Pigeon Feathers. A Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Updike populates his realist fiction with small-town, middle-class Americans. Adaptations of “A&P” include a 1966 short film directed by Bruce Schwartz, starring Sean Hayes as Sammy and Amy Smart as Queenie.The protagonist, Sammy, is also the story’s first-person... Read A&P Summary

A Painted House, a novel by #1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham, tells the story of seven-year-old Luke Chandler coming of age in Black Oak, Arkansas, in 1952. The novel focuses on a fateful autumn in which one of the workers on Luke’s family’s cotton farm murders a local man. Luke, as one of the only witnesses to the murder, must navigate the tensions that arise as his loyalty to his family is... Read A Painted House Summary

“A Pair of Silk Stockings” (1897) is a short story (2000-words) written by Kate Chopin, first published in Vogue magazine. The story is a work of Literary Realism, set at the time of publication and told from the third-person point of view. It describes the experience of Mrs. Sommers, a married, middle-class woman raising a family on a modest income, who unexpectedly comes into $15, a considerable amount of money in 1897. The interest of... Read A Pair of Silk Stockings Summary

Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is one of the most famous American history books published in recent decades. It has sold over two million copies. First published in 1980, the book was nominated for the American Book Award and has gone through at least six major revisions. Although controversial when first published, the book has become comfortably mainstream. It is mentioned by name in the film Good Will Hunting and the... Read A People’s History of the United States Summary

Apex Hides the Hurt, a 2006 novel by American author Colson Whitehead, follows a nameless, emotionally muted nomenclature consultant, or an expert in creating brand names. The novel toggles between the protagonist’s memories of success at his company, and his current consulting assignment—renaming a town. The novel satirizes contemporary American consumer culture and features themes of race and identity. Whitehead uses humor and revelation as key narrative techniques in this story about a man who... Read Apex Hides the Hurt Summary

Jack London’s 1909 “A Piece of Steak” is a naturalist short story first published in The Saturday Evening Post. It took him between two and four weeks to write, and he was paid a very handsome (for the era) $500 for it. While London is best known for his novels about the Alaskan wilderness, including The Call of the Wild and White Fang, he was also interested in workers’ rights and advocated for socialism and... Read A Piece of Steak Summary

... Read Apollo Summary

Arden of Faversham is an Elizabethan play originally performed in 1592. The play’s authorship is disputed. While potential authors include Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and Thomas Watson, computer stylometric analyses attribute probable authorship to William Shakespeare. The Oxford Shakespeare attributes the play to Shakespeare and an anonymous collaborator, potentially Watson.The play is the first extant example of English domestic tragedy, which would subsequently flourish throughout Elizabeth and Jamesian drama and be rekindled in the 1700s... Read Arden of Faversham Summary

“A Real Durwan” is the fourth story in Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut short-story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award. The story recounts the daily lives of the stair-sweeper, Boori Ma, and the families who share a building of flats in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) after the Partition of India in 1947. An English-born American author raised by Bengali parents, Lahiri is known for her characters’... Read A Real Durwan Summary

... Read Are Prisons Obsolete? Summary

In 1993, the Indian author Gita Mehta published her third book, A River Sutra. In a departure from her other books, which deal with connections between India and the West, the collection of stories that makes up A River Sutra looks at the diverse experiences across India itself. Presenting disconnected narratives about a variety of people, the book plays on the Indian concept of a “sutra” – literally, a thread, and more figuratively, a morality-delivering... Read A River Sutra Summary

A Room with a View is a 1908 novel by British author E. M. Forster. The novel is split between Italy and England, telling the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young and spirited middle-class Englishwoman who embarks on a journey of self-discovery during a trip to Italy. During her travels, Lucy falls in love with the free-spirited and unconventional George Emerson, a fellow tourist, but is later forced to choose between her heart's desire and... Read A Room with a View Summary

... Read Artemis Summary

“A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has the distinction of being the first short story to feature literature’s most famous sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes stories were originally serialized in The Strand Magazine, and the famous British literary magazine published Doyle’s works from 1891 to 1930. Doyle also featured his iconic amateur detective in four novels and several collections, including A Study in Scarlet (1887), The Sign of Four (1890)... Read A Scandal in Bohemia Summary

Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch is a work of historical fiction for young adult readers set against the backdrop of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The main character, Rose Nolan, is separated from most of her family. As a result, her relationship with her sister is rocky and they must find a way to survive in a new country—America—after passing through Ellis Island.The book takes place during the early twentieth century; there are... Read Ashes Of Roses Summary

"A Simple Heart" is a short story by Gustave Flaubert that appeared in his book Three Tales. (The story is also known as "A Simple Soul.") The story follows the kind and loving maidservant Félicité from her youth to her death and details the many loves that she loses along the way. George Charpentier published it in 1877.For fifty years, housemaid Félicité has worked for Madame Aubain, keeping house, cooking, darning, washing, ironing, bridling the... Read A Simple Heart Summary