Mortality & Death

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The God Delusion, written by Richard Dawkins, was first published in 2006 by Bantam Press. In the book, Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist and ethologist, uses his background in science and rational thought to explore and critique the concepts of God and religion. This non-fiction work falls under the subgenre of atheist literature and tackles concepts such as the question of the existence of God, the psychological and social reasons for religious belief, the impact... Read The God Delusion Summary

Scottish anthropologist James George Frazer published The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion in 1890 in two volumes. It is considered Frazer’s magnum opus and, in its 1936 third edition, was expanded into 13 volumes. Subsequent editions abridged the text to the currently used single-volume text. The title is taken from Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid, in which Aeneas uses a golden bough (or branch) to gain admission into the underworld. Though elements of... Read The Golden Bough Summary

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In The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, an orphan boy is raised by ghosts in a cemetery, where he learns how to become invisible, haunt people’s dreams, and face his destiny. Published in 2008, this fantasy-adventure novel for middle-grade and young-adult readers became a #1 New York Times bestseller. It won the Newbery and Carnegie medals for best children’s book, the first time a work has received both awards. It also garnered a Hugo Award... Read The Graveyard Book Summary

Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech’s 2012 novel, The Great Unexpected, follows the relationship between two best friends, Naomi Deane and Lizzie Scatterding, both orphans who know little about their families. They have felt heartache and loss, though these experiences impact them in contrasting ways: Lizzie is talkative and enthusiastic, while Naomi is guarded and anxious. In a discussion of her inspiration for the text, Creech recounts her realization that when faced with the unexpected, children... Read The Great Unexpected Summary

At Georgia Pines retirement home, an elderly Paul Edgecombe sets to write about the events of his time as a correctional officer at Louisiana’s Cold Mountain State Penitentiary with the help of his companion, Elaine Connelly. In 1932, a 40-year old Paul is the supervising officer of Cold Mountain’s death row, formally referred to as E Block, but known commonly as The Green Mile, for the color of its linoleum floor. This is the same... Read The Green Mile Summary

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Wendy Wasserstein’s play The Heidi Chronicles first opened Off-Broadway with Playwrights Horizons in 1988, transferring to Broadway for a successful run in 1989. The play follows Heidi Holland from the ages of 16 to 40 as she explores her desires for her own life, inspired by the liberation of feminism, but tempered by gendered expectations in a patriarchal society. Critics celebrated the play for introducing feminism into mainstream theater. Wasserstein wrote 11 plays, and The... Read The Heidi Chronicles Summary

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The Heretic’s Daughter (2008) is the debut novel of author Kathleen Kent. Upon publication, it immediately made the New York Times bestseller list. Kent followed this title with two other best-selling historical fiction works: The Traitor’s Wife (2010) and The Outcasts (2013). She also wrote a crime fiction trilogy that was nominated for an Edgar Award. A resident of Texas, Kent was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2020 for her contribution to... Read The Heretic's Daughter Summary

The Historian (2005), Elizabeth Kostova’s best-selling novel, blends fact and fiction to reinvent the myth of the iconic vampire Dracula, or Vlad Ţepeş. In this retelling, the unnamed narrator accompanies her ambassador father, Paul, across Europe in the early 1970s as he tells her the story of his near encounter with the vampire. He tells her the Prince of Wallachia lives, 500 years after his death. Paul’s mentor, Dr. Rossi, was conducting research on Dracula... Read The Historian Summary

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The House of Broken Angels (2018) is work of contemporary literary fiction by Luis Alberto Urrea. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Urrea has received a number of awards for his novels and non-fiction, including a Lannan Literary Award, an Edgar Award, and a Pulitzer Prize for his book The Devil’s Highway. Plot SummaryThe House of Broken Angels takes place in San Diego over the course of two days... Read The House of Broken Angels Summary

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is an 1831 gothic novel by French author Victor Hugo, originally published under the title Notre-Dame de Paris. Set in 15th-century France, the novel concerns the intertwined stories of Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and Archdeacon Claude Frollo. The story has been adapted many times for theater, television, and film, including an animated film by Disney released in 1996.This guide refers to the 2009 Oxford Classics edition of the novel, translated from French to... Read The Hunchback of Notre-Dame Summary

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The Iliad is a classic ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer, a name believed to refer to a tradition of epic hexameter verse rather than an individual composer. When, how, and by whom the poem was composed continues to be debated. Scholars generally believe the poem was composed and passed on orally, possibly over hundreds of years, before it was written down at some point during the mid-8th century BC (approximately when the Greek... Read The Iliad Summary