Audio Study Guides

On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder, PhD, describes how tyrants have dismantled 20th-century republics and replaced them with totalitarian regimes, and how threats to democracies still exist today, including in America. Published in 2017, On Tyranny holds the distinction of being a #1 New York Times bestseller. Dr. Snyder is a Yale professor of European history. His short and pithy book details the methods that demagogues, including Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, have used to degrade... Read On Tyranny Summary

Stephen King’s 2000 memoir, On Writing, details King’s formation as an author and provides writing advice. The memoir is divided into five sections: “C.V.,” “What Writing Is,” “Toolbox,” “On Writing,” and “On Living.”In “C.V.,” King provides a curriculum vitae describing how he was formed as a writer. He begins in his early childhood and describes his life with his mother, Nellie, and older brother, David. King’s father is not in the picture, and the family... Read On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft Summary

Published in 1992, Christopher R. Browning’s Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland explores the activities of a battalion of German police officers who are, in various ways, involved in the murder of vast numbers of Jews in occupied Poland during World War II. The men of Reserve Police Battalion 101 are largely middle-aged men from working- and middle-class backgrounds with little prior experience of military service or Nazi ideology... Read Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Summary

William Shakespeare’s Othello is a tragedy written in approximately 1603 and published in 1622. The play begins in Venice, where Iago, a subordinate of Othello’s and a captain in the Venetian defense forces, tells Roderigo that Othello has passed him over for promotion. Instead, Othello, a Moor, has chosen the noble and popular Michael Cassio to be his lieutenant. Iago tells Roderigo that he will have his revenge on Othello but behave as a loyal... Read Othello Summary

Sharon Draper’s Out of My Mind, based on her own experiences parenting a disabled child, is a New York Times Bestselling novel told from the first-person perspective of 10-year-old Melody Brooks. Melody is a fifth-grade girl who, due to cerebral palsy, is unable to communicate verbally and is wheelchair-bound. The struggles and prejudice that Melody encounters provide a more intimate and personal view of the lives of people with physical disabilities. Atheneum Books for Young... Read Out of My Mind Summary

Book Details & Major ThemesParadise Lost by John Milton is a long-form epic poem consisting of 12 books and more than 10,000 lines of blank verse. Published in 1667, Milton’s poem is an argument on God’s justice explored through a creative retelling of the Genesis story of Adam and Eve's temptation, fall, and expulsion from Eden. Through this biblical narrative, Milton explores themes of Individual Freedom and Self-Determination, The Paradox of the Pursuit of Knowledge... Read Paradise Lost Summary

Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed develops a theory of education fitted to the needs of the disenfranchised and marginalized members of capitalist societies. Combining educational and political philosophy, the book offers an analysis of oppression and a theory of liberation. Freire believes that traditional education serves to support the dominance of the powerful within society and thereby maintain the powerful’s social, political, and economic status quo. To overcome the oppression endemic to an exploitative... Read Pedagogy of the Oppressed Summary

Philoctetes is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles, which was first performed in ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War in 409 BC. It was performed at the ancient Greek festival of City Dionysia, where it was awarded first prize. Philoctetes takes place during the final year of the Trojan War and explores themes of friendship, trauma, deception versus morality, fate, and the individual versus the collective. This study guide uses the translation of Sophocles’ play... Read Philoctetes Summary

In Plagues and Peoples, William H. McNeill argues that patterns of disease have integrally influenced human history from prehistory to the modern day. Until 1976, the year of this book’s publication, the historical study of disease was treated as a footnote of minor importance compared to war, agriculture, and politics. By contrast, McNeill takes a broader view and breaks human history into two categories. The forces of ecology and humanity are equally weighed in McNeill’s... Read Plagues and Peoples Summary

Published anonymously in 1813, Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen’s most well-known book. A “novel of manners,” which presents a realistic picture of society through the customs and manners of everyday life, Pride and Prejudice offers a glimpse into 19th-century English social hierarchies, as well as women’s roles and the importance of marriage. While Austen’s books were popular during her lifetime, she died before she was acknowledged as their author; when Persuasion was published posthumously, her... Read Pride and Prejudice Summary

Redeployment is a 2014 book of short stories written by veteran Phil Klay. Its grim humor and unflinching look at the brutality and horrors of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars won Klay the National Book Award for fiction. The twelve stories in the collection examine themes of maddening bureaucracy, camaraderie among Marines, the cost of civilian casualties to Iraqi society and to the soldiers who inflict them, the difficulty of transitioning back into civilian life... Read Redeployment Summary

Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, first published in 1790, is written as a letter to a French friend of Burke’s family, Charles-Jean-François Depont, who requests Burke’s opinion of the French Revolution to date. Burke is a well-connected politician and political theorist of the late eighteenth century, though this tract would become his first significant work on the subject. In Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke speaks at length on the development... Read Reflections On The Revolution In France Summary

Refugee (2017) is a historical, young adult fiction novel by Alan Gratz. It follows the stories of three refugee children in three different geographic locations and points in time. Each child experiences traumatic losses and personal victories as they struggle to escape the political instability of their homelands. Josef Landau is fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939. Isabel Fernandez is escaping Castro’s Cuba in 1994. Mahmoud Bishara is leaving Syria during the volatile regime of Bashar... Read Refugee Summary

Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist (2018) is a biography of disavowed white nationalist Derek Black, authored by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eli Saslow.Derek is a former white nationalist wunderkind. Derek is the son of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and Stormfront online hate group creator, Don Black, and the godson of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard, white supremacist politician, and notorious public figure, David Duke. Derek’s parents remove... Read Rising Out of Hatred Summary

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy by the English playwright William Shakespeare. It is among Shakespeare’s best-known plays and, like its author, has been highly influential in shaping the course of English-language literature. First performed before 1597 (the date of its earliest known printing), it has been popular ever since. Like most of Shakespeare’s plays, it employs a combination of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) and prose, with occasional deviations in form; for example, Shakespeare... Read Romeo and Juliet Summary

Salt to the Sea is a historical young adult novel written by Ruta Sepetys and published in 2016. Sepetys is known for similar young adult historical fiction works, such as I Must Betray You (2022) and Between Shades of Gray (2011). Set during World War II, Salt to the Sea is a coming-of-age story that follows four protagonists as they make and resist the journey to adulthood in a world characterized by war and trauma... Read Salt to the Sea Summary

Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora by author and history professor Stephanie E. Smallwood is a work of historical nonfiction that recreates the trade of enslaved people through the eyes of enslaved African people. Published in 2007, it won the 2008 Frederick Douglas Book Prize, awarded to the best book written in English regarding slavery or abolition. The book seeks to expand the current understanding of the Atlantic trade of enslaved... Read Saltwater Slavery Summary

Jonathan Kozol's 1991 book, Savage Inequalities, is a critical look at the American educational system and its failures. The main argument of the book is that a tremendous divide exists between rich and poor in education, a divide intensified by ethnic and racial prejudice. Kozol claims that in many communities and localities, American schools remain effectively segregated, more than 50 years after the criminalization of such practices. Kozol argues that while the letter of the... Read Savage Inequalities Summary

Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South (1998) is a memoir by the American author and historian Melton A. McLaurin, who describes coming of age as a white person in the segregated South. McLaurin was born in 1941 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and grows up in the nearby town of Wade. The memoir takes place in the small town of Wade during the 1950s and focuses on the racism he witnessed at both individual... Read Separate Pasts Summary

Shadowshaper is an urban fantasy young adult novel written by Daniel José Older and originally published in 2015. The first book in the Shadowshaper Cypher series, Shadowshaper follows an Afro-Boricua teenager named Sierra who discovers she has a magical and spiritual family heritage. The book was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2015 and was shortlisted for the 2015 Kirkus Prize. This study guide refers the 2015 paperback Scholastic Inc. edition.   Plot SummaryAt... Read Shadowshaper Summary