Fathers

... Read About Grace Summary

A Boy at War is the first of three novels by Harry Mazer that feature Adam Pelko as their protagonist. Published in 2001 by Simon & Schuster, it was followed by A Boy No More (2004) and Heroes Don’t Run (2005). Sergeant Harry Mazer was born in New York City in 1925 and served in the United States Air Force in the European theater of World War II from 1943-1945. He was awarded the Purple... Read A Boy at War Summary

... Read Absolutely Normal Chaos 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

Miriam Toews’s A Complicated Kindness (2004) is about Nomi Nickel, an adolescent living in the religious Mennonite town of East Village whose coming of age takes place against the backdrop of her family’s unraveling. Toews, who grew up in the Mennonite community of Steinbach, Manitoba, is the author of several novels set in Mennonite communities, many of which are critical of aspects of the faith. This novel, Toews’s third, has garnered considerable acclaim and many... Read A Complicated Kindness Summary

A writer sits next to her elderly, ailing father, who asks her to “write a simple story just once more […] the kind de Maupassant wrote, or Chekhov” (Paragraph 2). Wanting to please her father, the writer agrees, although she privately feels uncomfortable telling stories with a definite beginning and end: “Everyone, real or invented, deserves the open destiny of life” (Paragraph 3).The writer jots down a one-paragraph story about a woman who begins doing... Read A Conversation with My Father Summary

... Read A Day in the Life of Abed Salama Summary

... Read A Day's Wait Summary

“A Devoted Son” is a short story by Indian author Anita Desai originally published in her 1978 collection Games at Twilight and Other Stories. The story is about the relationship between a father and son and examines how time and perspective can change the way actions and intentions are perceived. This collection also features another well-known story, "Games at Twilight," Varma is proud because his son, Rakesh, is at the top of the academic list... Read A Devoted Son Summary

Among Peter Meinke’s most anthologized poems, “Advice to My Son” is best known for its humorous, ironic tone and contemporary interpretation of traditional rhyme structure. First published in 1964 in The Antioch Review, the poem was anthologized in the volume Liquid Paper: New and Selected Poems (1991), published by the Pittsburgh Press. According to Meinke, he had little idea that the poem would so deeply resonate with readers when he first wrote it as a... Read Advice to My Son Summary

... Read After We Collided 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

A House for Mr. Biswas is a 1961 historical fiction 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. Naipaul is also known for the works The Mimic... Read A House for Mr. Biswas Summary

... Read Ali Cross Summary

The classic children’s novel A Little Princess; Being the Whole Story of Sara Crewe Now Told for the First Time was published in 1905. In this work, Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924), a celebrated Anglo-American novelist and playwright who is also known for the novels Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) and The Secret Garden (1910), expands her earlier novella, Sara Crewe: or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's (1888), which had originally been serialized in St. Nicholas’ Magazine... Read A Little Princess Summary

... Read All the Devils are Here Summary

... Read All We Ever Wanted Summary

Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus, which premiered at the London Royal National Theatre in 1979, presents a fictionalized history of the renowned composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart through the eyes of Antonio Salieri, a composer whose lackluster artistic legacy has been all but buried by time. The play begins on the eve of what Salieri, now an old man, believes will be the last day of his life. Salieri narrates and reenacts the story of his tumultuous... Read Amadeus Summary

American Pastoral (1997) by Philip Roth examines in detail one man’s quest for the American dream and the fragility of the entire enterprise. Roth, one of the most critically acclaimed novelists of the 20th century, focuses his narrative microscope through the eyes of Nathan Zuckerman, his literary alter ego from whose perspective he has written 10 other novels, including Zuckerman Unbound (1981), The Anatomy Lesson (1983), The Human Stain (2000), and The Plot Against America... Read American Pastoral Summary

On its publication in 2018, An American Marriage received critical acclaim for its examination of the complex dynamic of contemporary relationships and its timely exploration of black identity in 21st century America. Tayari Jones, a professor of creative writing at Emory University in Atlanta, published three earlier novels, but it was An American Marriage that catapulted her to international acclaim. The book was a selection for Oprah Winfrey’s book club, a New York Times best-seller... Read An American Marriage Summary