Guilt

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Double Indemnity (1936) is a crime thriller novel by American novelist, journalist, and screenwriter James Mallahan Cain. Double Indemnity follows Walter Huff, an insurance agent who is seduced by Phyllis Nirdlinger into killing Phyllis’ husband for an insurance fraud scheme to collect 50 thousand dollars. “Double indemnity” is a clause in a life insurance policy that doubles the policy’s value if the policyholder dies in an accident. James M. Cain was a pioneer of American... Read Double Indemnity Summary

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Drinking: A Love Story is Caroline Knapp’s 1997 memoir about her alcoholism and recovery. Knapp examines how her relationship with alcohol turned into a dangerous love affair that threatened to destroy her life. She also explores important aspects of her family life and romantic relationships, both of which contributed to her addiction and were impeded by her drinking.Knapp begins the book with a prologue that helps the reader understand why she quit drinking. She explains... Read Drinking: A Love Story Summary

Duma Key by Stephen King is a novel in the literary-horror genre, praised for its eerie, spooky atmosphere and suspenseful build-up. Published in 2008, Duma Key is the first novel by King to be set in Florida. The book follows Edgar Freemantle as he moves from Minnesota to the island of Duma (one of the Florida Keys, or small islands) after a life-changing accident. Tormented by phantom-limb pain from his amputation and unable to remember... Read Duma Key Summary

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Elijah of Buxton is a 2007 middle grade novel by American writer Christopher Paul Curtis. Set in the 1850s, it follows 11-year-old Elijah Freeman, the first freeborn child of Buxton, a Canadian settlement of escaped slaves, as he makes a dangerous journey into the United States. The novel was a Newbery Honor Book and won the Coretta Scott King Award. Plot SummaryThe story opens as Elijah investigates strange animal tracks with his friend Cooter. A local... Read Elijah of Buxton Summary

“Eloisa to Abelard” is a poem published in 1717 by Alexander Pope. The poem discusses the ill-fated love affair of a real-life couple from 12th-century France: Heloïse d’Argenteuil, a gifted 18-year-old student, and Peter Abelard, a renowned French scholar, philosopher, and poet of the Medieval era who was 20 years older than Heloïse. The poem is a heroic verse epistle, which is a genre first made famous in Ovid’s Heroides. Pope adopts Eloisa’s persona and... Read Eloisa to Abelard Summary

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Ender’s Game (1985) is a best-selling dystopian science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card. The story follows a precocious boy’s fight against space aliens and his own government. The essence of the story first appeared in a small sci-fi journal in 1977 as a short story of the same name. Card expanded the premise into a series that includes 15 novels and 13 related short stories. In addition to winning a Nebula Award in 1985... Read Ender's Game Summary

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“Ethan Brand” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a short story written in 1850 and published in his 1852 collection The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales. The author uses allegory, ambiguity, and the literary devices of Dark Romanticism to explore the themes of The Dangers of Amoral Intellectualism, Spiritual Damnation and Pride, and The Loneliness of Social Detachment and Rejection.Christian morality, spiritual anxiety, and the moral pitfalls of intellectualism and science appear throughout Hawthorne’s works. His most... Read Ethan Brand Summary

Eumenides is an Attic tragedy by the playwright Aeschylus (circa 525/4-circa 456/5 BCE). Eumenides was the final part of the Oresteia, a tragic trilogy first produced for the City Dionysia in 458 BCE. The Oresteia describes the murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra and the aftermath of this act; in Eumenides, Orestes—the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra—must undergo a trial to be purified of the blood of his mother, whom he murdered to avenge... Read Eumenides Summary

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Drawing on the author’s hardscrabble childhood in early-20th-century Ireland, Frank O’Connor’s “First Confession” chronicles the experience of seven-year-old Jackie, who must ready himself for the emotional and spiritual challenge of his first confession in the Catholic Church. The story was first published as “Repentance” in 1935 but heavily revised in later editions. This guide follows the version most reprinted today from O’Connor’s 1951 collection Traveller's Samples: Stories and Tales. O’Connor (1903-1966), who published more than... Read First Confession Summary

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Flying Solo (1998) by Ralph Fletcher takes place over one day in a sixth-grade classroom at Paulson Elementary School. The novel’s plot centers around a class having no teacher for the day when the substitute never shows up. With no adult supervision, emotions run high between the students, especially since it is the six-month anniversary of a classmate’s death.Booklist describes Flying Solo as “sad, poignant, and funny,” while School Library Journal praises the work as... Read Flying Solo Summary