Appearance Versus Reality

Published in 1956, The Floating Opera is a literary novel by John Barth. Barth’s first novel, The Floating Opera focuses on Todd Andrews as he makes plans to commit suicide in the late 1930s, utilizing first-person nonlinear storytelling and humor to meditate on life and death. Following its publication, the novel was nominated for the National Book Award. Barth has published numerous novels since, becoming a seminal figure in postmodern American literature. Plot SummaryTodd Andrews narrates... Read The Floating Opera Summary

“The Flowers,” a short story by Alice Walker, considers the impact of the Jim Crow South on a young Black girl’s emotional development and social awareness. Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1983—along with a National Book Award—for her critically acclaimed work The Color Purple (1982). Her experience growing up poor in the segregated sharecropping community of Eatonton, Georgia, as well as her advocacy as a Womanist activist, inform the personal and social... Read The Flowers Summary

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The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn (1999), by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler, is the first novel in the Samurai Detective young adult series, currently comprised of seven books. The novel follows Seikei, the son of a merchant who aspires to be a samurai, as he helps the judge investigate the theft of a ruby from a samurai lord. It explores the themes of Personal Ambition Versus Societal Expectations, The Deceptiveness of Appearances, and The Importance... Read The Ghost In The Tokaido Inn Summary

“The Gilded Six-Bits” is a short story written by Zora Neale Hurston and originally published in 1933 in Story magazine. The story explores themes of Sex, Physical Desire, and Marriage, The Function and Morality of Money, and Appearance Versus Reality. Hurston, in addition to being a noted African American author, was also an anthropologist and folklorist. She is best known for her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. “The Gilded Six-Bits” is Hurston’s most... Read The Gilded Six-Bits Summary

Paula Hawkins wrote The Girl on the Train over the course of six months in 2014. Hawkins, an Oxford-educated journalist and writer, drew on her experience as a reporter in London to structure the novel and describe its locations. Drawing immediate comparisons to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Girl on the Train had similar performance, debuting at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2015, and remaining there for 13 consecutive weeks... Read The Girl On The Train Summary

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Published in 1999, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a psychological thriller novel by bestselling author Stephen King. Renowned for his horror writing, King draws on primal human fears as he follows spirited nine-year-old Trisha McFarland on a harrowing battle for survival after getting lost in the woods. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon explores themes of nature, faith, and the dangers of everyday life through the eyes of a plucky young heroine. Plans... Read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon Summary

An instant success, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Gold-Bug” was published in 1843. Poe submitted the short story to a writing competition that was sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. “The Gold-Bug” was awarded first place and subsequently published in three installments. The story was Poe’s most widely read work during his lifetime. Other works by Poe include “The Oval Portrait”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and “The Black Cat”. This guide refers to the 2021 Amazon Kindle... Read The Gold Bug Summary

The Golden Bowl is a 1904 novel by Henry James. The novel explores the intricacies of marriage and affairs in the early 19th century through the affair of Amerigo and Charlotte, who were once in love but too poor to marry. Amerigo instead marries Maggie, and Charlotte marries Maggie’s father, a wealthy American museum curator. While Amerigo is at first happy with his new wife, the time she spends with her father creates an opportunity... Read The Golden Bowl Summary

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In The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, an orphan boy is raised by ghosts in a cemetery, where he learns how to become invisible, haunt people’s dreams, and face his destiny. Published in 2008, this fantasy-adventure novel for middle-grade and young-adult readers became a #1 New York Times bestseller. It won the Newbery and Carnegie medals for best children’s book, the first time a work has received both awards. It also garnered a Hugo Award... Read The Graveyard Book Summary

Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech’s 2012 novel, The Great Unexpected, follows the relationship between two best friends, Naomi Deane and Lizzie Scatterding, both orphans who know little about their families. They have felt heartache and loss, though these experiences impact them in contrasting ways: Lizzie is talkative and enthusiastic, while Naomi is guarded and anxious. In a discussion of her inspiration for the text, Creech recounts her realization that when faced with the unexpected, children... Read The Great Unexpected Summary

The Guest List by Lucy Foley is a contemporary murder mystery novel published in 2020. Foley, an English author, weaves a tale of intrigue, secrets, and betrayal upon the backdrop of an isolated island in West Ireland. Foley is also known for the thrillers The Hunting Party (2018) and The Paris Apartment (2022), among others. Often likened to Agatha Christie, Foley’s novel is a slow-burn whodunit.Plot SummaryMany perspectives compose The Guest List; each chapter jumps... Read The Guest List Summary

“The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” is a short story written by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez. Originally published in 1968 and titled “El ahogado más hermoso del mundo,” the story is a work of magical realism, a genre that treats magical or fantastical elements as though they were normal, everyday occurrences.Set on a summer day in a small coastal village in South America, the story concerns the villagers’ reaction to the discovery of... Read The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World Summary

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Set in New York’s high society at the turn of the 20th century, The House of Mirth (1905), was the second novel by renowned American writer Edith Wharton. Wharton drew upon her own privileged upbringing in a wealthy, long-established New York family for her astute observations of this social milieu during the Gilded Age, a period marked by economic disparities and ostentatious materialism. Prior to the novel’s publication in October 1905, The House of Mirth... Read The House of Mirth Summary

The Human Condition, written by Hannah Arendt and originally published in 1958, is a work of political and philosophical nonfiction. Arendt, a German-American philosopher and political theorist, divides the central theme of the book, vita activa, into three distinct functions: labor, work, and action. Her analyses of these three concepts form the philosophical core of the book. The rest of the book is historical in approach.Part 1 serves as an introduction to Arendt’s argument. She... Read The Human Condition Summary