Books that Feature the Theme of Masculinity

... Read The Frozen River 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

The Godfather, by American author Mario Puzo, was published in 1969 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons. It was an immediate success, remaining on the New York Times Bestseller List for 67 weeks and selling over nine million copies in two years. The book was lauded for its authenticity, despite the fact that Puzo had no real-life experience with the Mafia, though he did grow up in Vito Corleone’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. In 1972, Francis Ford Coppola’s... Read The Godfather Summary

... Read The Great Hunt Summary

... Read The Homecoming Summary

... Read The Immoralist Summary

The Labyrinth of Solitude is a nine-part philosophical and historical essay on Mexican identity and culture. Octavio Paz, a famous Mexican poet and career diplomat, began writing The Labyrinth of Solitude during his time as the Mexican ambassador to France in the late 1940s. Originally published in 1951, the first edition of Paz’s work appeared in Spanish under the title El labertino de la soledad, and it is widely considered to be Paz’s masterpiece. This... Read The Labyrinth of Solitude Summary

The Lady in the Lake, by Raymond Chandler, is a detective novel originally published in 1943. Chandler was born in Chicago but later moved to California, and he drew on his experiences living there when writing his Philip Marlowe novels. Marlowe, a down-on-his-luck Los Angeles detective, first appears in Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep, which was adapted into a film noir in 1946 with Marlowe played by Humphrey Bogart. In the 1946 adaptation of The... Read The Lady in the Lake Summary

The Last Kingdom, published in 2004, was the first volume in what would become a series of 12 historical adventure novels, set in Britain in the late-ninth and early 10th centuries. The novels chronicle the bloody territorial wars between the English armies of the island’s then four kingdoms and the invading Danish armies, fierce Northern warriors known in contemporary pop culture as the Vikings. Bernard Cornwell was already an established and prolific writer of historical... Read The Last Kingdom Summary

... Read The Last Straw Summary

... Read The Laws of Human Nature Summary

... Read The Lieutenant of Inishmore Summary

The Lost Steps, first published in 1953 by Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, is a parody of the lost world novels that were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) and Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World (1912). The novel follows an unnamed New York City composer on a quest for Indigenous musical instruments in South America. Carpentier, known for his roles as a... Read The Lost Steps Summary

“The Luck of Roaring Camp” is the short story that established Bret Harte’s (also spelled Hart) reputation in the United States and internationally. Set in a gold prospecting camp in 1850 California, the story explores the themes of relationships between man and nature, the possibility of man’s redemption, and the rejection of standard gender roles. Widely published in newspapers and magazines, Harte was known for his depictions of rough or romantic life in the American... Read The Luck of Roaring Camp Summary

Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1930) is a detective novel that was first serialized in the magazine Black Mask. As Hammett’s third novel, The Maltese Falcon includes the introduction of Sam Spade as the protagonist, a departure from the nameless Continental Op who narrated his previous stories. Spade’s hard exterior, cool detachment, and reliance on his own moral code would become staples of the hardboiled genre, and The Maltese Falcon has since been named one... Read The Maltese Falcon Summary

... Read The Man Nobody Knows Summary

“The Man Who Was Almost a Man” is a short story by African American author Richard Wright, first published in 1940 by Harper’s Bazaar magazine and again in the posthumous 1961 short story collection Eight Men. The story engages with issues of racial discrimination, oppression, and African American identity in a naturalistic writing style. It follows the struggles of Dave Saunders, a young African American man who works at a plantation in the rural South... Read The Man Who Was Almost a Man Summary

Published in 1998, The Men of Brewster Place is a companion to Gloria Naylor’s acclaimed 1982 novel, The Women of Brewster Place. Written as a series of vignettes, the novel tells the intertwining stories of seven Black men living in Brewster Place, a degrading apartment block in an unnamed American city. Each must fight to define his identity as a man while existing within the confines of a racist, sexist society. With themes of pain... Read The Men of Brewster Place Summary

... Read The Mighty Red Summary

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) is Edgar Allan Poe’s only complete novel. The first two installments were published in 1837 in the Southern Literary Messenger magazine, where Poe was an editor. After leaving the Messenger, he continued working on the novel intermittently until it was published as a complete text in 1838. It brings together various literary genres—including the adventure story, coming-of-age narrative, and scientific guidebook— and infuses them with an... Read The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Summary