Marriage

Published in 1905, The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emma Orczy, is a historical romance adventure novel about a wealthy English baronet with a secret life as a hero who rescues the innocent from the French Reign of Terror. Told mainly from the viewpoint of his wife, the book—based on the successful London play of the same name—birthed a series of Scarlet Pimpernel novels, movies, and TV productions. It ushered in the secret-identity genre of adventure... Read The Scarlet Pimpernel Summary

The Screwtape Letters, first published in serial format in The Guardian and then as a single volume in 1942, is an epistolary novel by British author C. S. Lewis; its epilogue, “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” was published in 1959. Like much of Lewis’s work, the novel is a work of Christian apologetics, using letters penned by a senior devil named Screwtape to expound on different elements of Christian theology and morality, exploring themes of Human... Read The Screwtape Letters Summary

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First published in the New Yorker in 1939, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is James Thurber’s short story about the flamboyant fantasy life of a timid suburban Everyman. A gentle satire of the human imagination (among other things), the story struck an immediate and lasting chord in the midcentury American imagination and is widely regarded as a comic masterpiece. Its distinctive mixture of pathos and parody made it one of the most anthologized short... Read The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Summary

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An American writer and composer who lived in Morocco for most of his life, Paul Bowles was a peripheral member of the post-World War II counter-cultural group of writers known as the Beat generation. The Sheltering Sky (1949), his first novel, is his best-known work, although he wrote other novels, numerous short stories, and works of nonfiction, most notably travel narratives. He also translated several works by Moroccan writers. The Sheltering Sky was adapted into... Read The Sheltering Sky Summary

IntroductionThe Shining is a 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King. It tells the story of Jack, Wendy, and Danny Torrance during an isolated winter in which Jack becomes the caretaker of Colorado’s Overlook Hotel. It deals with themes of parenthood, isolation, addiction, and the bonds of family. The Shining was Stephen King’s third novel and his first hardback bestseller. It was adapted into a 1980 film directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack... Read The Shining Summary

“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway that was first published in Cosmopolitan in 1936. It explores themes of power and dominance, courage and cowardice, and the nature of masculinity. The story details a hunting party and love triangle in which a husband, a wife, and their hired huntsman struggle for dominance and power over one another. This guide references the collection The Snows of Kilimanjaro... Read The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber Summary

IntroductionThe Signature of All Things is an adult historical novel by American author Elizabeth Gilbert. It was published by Penguin Random House in 2013, and Gilbert had already established herself on the New York Times bestseller list with her two memoirs, Eat, Pray, Love (2006) and Committed (2010), after garnering critical acclaim for her earlier fiction, biographies, and magazine journalism. The Signature of All Things spans the life of the fictional Alma Whittaker, a keenly... Read The Signature of All Things Summary

The Silent Wife by A. S. A. Harrison is a psychological thriller about a failing marriage. Published in 2013, the novel is Harrison’s first entry into the genre, though she had previously published an erotic novel and a non-fiction book on the female orgasm in the 1970s. Harrison passed away from cancer weeks before the novel’s publication. The novel has been compared to Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl in terms of both its content—the depiction of... Read The Silent Wife Summary

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Jennifer E. Smith’s The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (2012) is one of nine books that she has written for young adults to date. In an interview with Buzz Magazine, Smith said, “I’m kind of obsessed with moments in time that act as hinges, days where there’s a really clear split between before and after—where yesterday, your life was one way, and tomorrow it will be entirely different” (“Author Interview: Jennifer E. Smith.”... Read The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight Summary

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Vogue magazine first published American author Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” in 1894. It was published under the alternate title “The Dream of an Hour.” Some contemporary readers consider the story an early example of flash fiction, a term used for very short prose narratives. The story exemplifies psychological fiction, in which the action of the plot concerns the emotions and thoughts of the protagonist. One of Chopin’s best-known and most popular works... Read The Story of an Hour Summary

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