The Past

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The autobiography of Cuban novelist and poet Reinaldo Arenas, Before Night Falls, details his life as a gay man under Fidel Castro’s regime and the consequences of his dissidence. It was published posthumously in 1993. Immediately named one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, it has since been adapted into a movie and, later, an opera. Before Night Falls tells the story of Arenas’s life growing up in a... Read Before Night Falls Summary

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Published in 2004, Alice Hoffman’s novel Blackbird House chronicles a house on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and its inhabitants over a 200-year span. The story, which invokes elements of magical realism, begins during the War of 1812 and ends in the present day. Shifting between first-person and third-person point-of-view, the novel delves into the themes of Love as Motivation, Resilience Resulting from Adversity, and The Power of Place in Shaping Lives.Other works by this author include... Read Blackbird House Summary

Blue Highways: A Journey into America (1982) is an autobiographical travelogue by American historian William Least Heat-Moon. The trip in question—a 13,000-mile circuit around the States—began in 1978, the book’s title deriving from out-of-the-way routes drawn in blue on an old road atlas. The author-narrator researches local history of the areas visited and interviews the many people he meets. Heat-Moon spent the subsequent years composing and revising the manuscript, and after a few rejections, it... Read Blue Highways: A Journey into America Summary

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IntroductionMany readers are familiar with Roald Dahl (1916-1990) as the author of popular stories such as James and the Giant Peach (1961) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964). Dahl published 19 novels and short story collections for children. He was born in Wales to a Norwegian family and spent most of his life in England. He was an intelligence officer and fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II and suffered... Read Boy: Tales of Childhood Summary

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Bring Up the Bodies (2012) is a Tudor-era historical novel by British writer Hilary Mantel. It is the second novel in a trilogy depicting the life and career of Thomas Cromwell, a 16th-century English politician and advisor to King Henry VIII. Bring Up the Bodies followed Wolf Hall (2009) and preceded The Mirror and The Light (2020). It received significant critical acclaim and was awarded the 2012 Man Booker Prize. BBC produced a television adaptation... Read Bring Up The Bodies Summary

Published in 1979 and translated into English in 1990, Ismail Kadare’s Broken April is a dramatic story set in the remote mountainsides of Albania. The story opens with a young mountaineer murdering a neighbor to honor a blood feud. As the man’s story unfolds, two newlyweds from the city arrive in the mountains for their honeymoon and become entangled in the customs and practices of the mountaineers. Dark and tragic, Broken April tackles themes of... Read Broken April Summary

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Burnt Shadows, first published in 2009, is the fifth novel by Pakistani-British author Kamila Shamsie. A political-historical novel, it was nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction, one of the UK’s most prestigious literary awards, and won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, which celebrates books that contribute to a greater understanding of racism and diversity. Shamsie has been shortlisted several times for a John Llewellyn Rhys Prize; she also received the Prime Minister’s Award for Literature... Read Burnt Shadows Summary

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IntroductionCall Me By Your Name by André Aciman is a piece of literary fiction in the subgenres of romance literature and queer literature. Published in 2007, the novel became a bestseller, received positive critical reception, and won the 2008 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. The 2017 film adaptation of Call Me By Your Name, directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer, won, among other accolades, the Academy Award for Best Adapted... Read Call Me By Your Name Summary

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... Read Case Histories: A Novel Summary