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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 Name of the Wind, published in 2007, is the first book in author Patrick Rothfuss’s The Kingkiller Chronicle series. The fantasy novel is an incomplete coming-of-age-style tale about Kvothe, a legendary and extraordinary figure whose many heroic deeds are the subject of local lore. Kvothe has come to retire as an innkeeper in a small town where the people know him as “Kote.” However, disquieting events start to happen as a result of a... Read The Name of the Wind Summary

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The narrator describes the setting of the story: a seaside city called Omelas, where the "Festival of Summer" has just begun. Music is playing, parades and processions are underway, and all the residents of the town seem happy and excited as they converge on the Green Fields. Here, boys and girls wait with their ornamented but unsaddled horses for a race to begin.The beauty of the weather and scenery match the mood of the city:... Read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas Summary

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower is Stephen Chbosky’s first novel and was published in 1999. It is young adult fiction and a coming-of-age tale told from the perspective of Charlie, a freshman in high school. The epistolary novel is comprised of a series of letters that Charlie writes to someone he calls “friend,” although he has never met this friend in person. He makes it immediately clear that he wants to remain anonymous with... Read The Perks of Being a Wallflower Summary

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux is a Gothic mystery novel first published serially in 1910. The novel follows a “ghost” who haunts the Paris Opera and the mysterious incidents attributed to this figure. The characters and the narrator himself try to uncover the secret of this ghost, who is really a masked man infatuated opera singer, Christine Daaé. The novel has been adapted into several formats, most notably a 1925 silent film... Read The Phantom of the Opera Summary

In Norton Juster’s 1961 middle-grade fantasy adventure The Phantom Tollbooth, a bored young boy visits a magical land whose people suffer from a strange delusion and volunteers to find a source of wisdom that can heal them. The book is a touchstone for generations of young readers; it has sold nearly five million copies in more than a dozen languages and has been adapted for film, stage, and symphony hall. Author Juster published a dozen... Read The Phantom Tollbooth Summary

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Władysław Szpilman writes his 1946 memoir, The Pianist, about his experiences in Poland during World War II. Before the war, he is a well-known pianist and composer who works with Radio Poland. When the Germans invade Poland in September 1930, Władysław and his family are relegated to the Warsaw ghetto. Though not as wealthy as some of the other inhabitants of the ghetto, Władysław is part of the intelligentsia, a class of artists and intellectuals... Read The Pianist Summary

IntroductionAugust Wilson’s play The Piano Lesson premiered in 1987 at Yale Repertory Theatre starring a young, unknown Samuel L. Jackson as Boy Willie. The play opened on Broadway in 1990 with Charles S. Dutton (Boy Willie), S. Epatha Merkerson (Berniece), and Jackson in his Broadway debut as Dutton’s understudy; it earned five Tony nominations, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Best Play award. It also won the... Read The Piano Lesson Summary

Elizabeth Acevedo’s award-winning 2018 young adult novel, The Poet X, brings to life the inner world of protagonist Xiomara Batista. Xiomara is 15 years old, and from her bedroom in Harlem, she writes poetry in order to put on the page all the feelings and ideas she cannot seem to be able to say out loud. Xiomara resigns herself to writing in her notebook and sharing her thoughts with only a few trusted individuals until... Read The Poet X Summary

Chris Gardner’s memoir, The Pursuit of Happyness, details his pursuit of the American Dream and desire to rise against the challenging circumstances of his birth and attain success. From the outset, life is difficult for Gardner, a poor black child growing up in the Milwaukee ghetto with his mother, sisters and violent, abusive stepfather, Freddie. Gardner’s mother, Bettye Jean, had her own dreams taken away from her, when her father refused to pay for her... Read The Pursuit of Happyness Summary

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In The Secret Chord (2015), Geraldine Brooks, a former journalist and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of historical fiction, turns to the story of the biblical King David. She uses this figure from religion and history to study human nature. Her David is far from a saint. He is a complex character: “a man who dwelt in the searing glance of the divine, but who sweated and stank, rutted without restraint, butchered the innocent, betrayed those... Read The Secret Chord Summary

The Smell of Apples, the first novel by South African writer Mark Behr, was originally published in 1993 in Afrikaner, before being published in English translation in 1995 to international acclaim. It won numerous prestigious literary prizes, most notably the M-Net Literary Award for best South African novel; the Betty Trask Award for best first novel published in the British Commonwealth; and the Art Seidenbaum Award for best English-language first novel, presented by The Los... Read The Smell of Apples Summary

The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather is the second novel in her classic American series entitled The Great Plains Trilogy. The trilogy includes O, Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Antonia (1918). Each novel in this trilogy explores different stories of women who find themselves challenged, nurtured, and built up by the natural beauty of the American West. These novels explore the conflicts and compromises when women either lean... Read The Song of the Lark Summary

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