Birth & Rebirth

Salvage the Bones tells the story of the Batiste family in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, in the twelve days leading up to Hurricane Katrina. Claude Batiste’s wife, mother of Randall, Skeetah (Jason), Esch and Junior, died a few years ago, right after Junior was born. The kids still live with their father, in an area called the Pit. They are a poor, black family, who mainly survive on what Claude can make by salvaging and then... Read Salvage the Bones Summary

Shadow of Night (2012) is a historical fantasy romance novel by Deborah Harkness, and the second book in the All Souls Trilogy, preceded by A Discovery of Witches (2011) and followed by The Book of Life (2014). A prequel novel, Time’s Convert (2019), follows the origin story of Matthew’s son Marcus, who is a minor character in Shadow of Night.Harkness holds a PhD from the University of California, Davis and teaches early modern European history... Read Shadow of Night Summary

... Read Sonnet 1 Summary

Published in 2008, The Art of Racing in the Rain is a New York Times bestselling novel by Garth Stein. It follows the life of race car driver Denny Swift and is told from the perspective of his dog, Enzo. Stein was inspired to write the book after watching the 1998 Mongolian documentary State of Dogs about a dog who is reincarnated as a human after death, and after seeing the poet Billy Collins read... Read The Art of Racing in the Rain Summary

The artist and writer Thi Bui published her autobiographical graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, in 2017. Alternating her narrative between her present-day experiences as a new mother in New York City with her parents’ past growing up in and then escaping from Vietnam, Bui builds a complex web of intergenerational trauma and love. This is Bui’s first venture into comic book illustration. The artwork that accompanies her narrative is based on the black... Read The Best We Could Do Summary

The Children of Men is a dystopian 1992 science fiction novel by P.D. James set in 2021, years after the onset of a mass infertility epidemic. Unless scientists can discover a cure, there will be no more births and the human race will go extinct when the youngest generation dies. This scenario allows James to explore many themes, including existentialism, the meaning of a good life, and the corrupting nature of power.The novel switches between... Read The Children of Men Summary

The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by the French writer Alexandre Dumas, originally published in serial form between 1844 and 1846, which is reflected in the novel’s episodic structure, large cast of characters, and frequent shifts of scene. The novel has been translated into English several times, usually in abridged form. This guide follows the translation and abridgment by Lowell Blair, first published in 1956.Content Warning: The source material includes suicide, suicidal... Read The Count of Monte Cristo Summary

... Read The Frozen River Summary

... Read The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly Summary

The Human Condition, written by Hannah Arendt and originally published in 1958, is a work of political and philosophical nonfiction. Arendt, a German-American philosopher and political theorist, divides the central theme of the book, vita activa, into three distinct functions: labor, work, and action. Her analyses of these three concepts form the philosophical core of the book. The rest of the book is historical in approach.Part 1 serves as an introduction to Arendt’s argument. She... Read The Human Condition Summary

... Read The Leap Summary

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is a nine-volume novel published between 1759 and 1767 by English novelist Laurence Sterne. The novel is considered by many scholars as an early forerunner of postmodern literature due to its metafictional commentary on its own narrative. Contemporary critics did not view the novel favorably, though its humor and sentimentalism helped it find an audience. The novel has been adapted for radio and opera and as a... Read The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Summary

“The Man Who Planted Trees” is a short story published in 1953 by French author Jean Giono. It chronicles a shepherd’s three-decade-long effort to reforest a barren tract of land in Southeastern France. Spanning a time period shortly before World War I until shortly after World War II, the story is both an antiwar allegory and an environmental allegory. “The Man Who Planted Trees” inspired numerous adaptations across various mediums, including a 1988 Academy Award-winning... Read The Man Who Planted Trees Summary

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline is a science fiction novel set in a post-apocalyptic Canada where climate devastation ravages the world and the Canadian government’s Recruiters hunt Natives for the dreams that are woven into their bone marrow. Millions have died in the wake of global warming, and those who remain have experienced such extensive trauma that they have lost the ability to dream. Dimaline describes a world plagued by natural disasters, with vivid descriptions... Read The Marrow Thieves Summary

... Read The Mother Summary

“What You Pawn I Will Redeem” is a short story by Sherman Alexie, an American writer and member of both the Spokane and Coeur-d’Alene nations. First published in The New Yorker in 2003, the story also featured in Alexie’s 2004 collection Ten Little Indians. Although largely realistic in its depiction of issues like homelessness and the legacy of Native American genocide, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” contains references to and elements of fairy tale... Read What You Pawn I Will Redeem Summary

Whirligig, by Paul Fleischman, is a 1998 YA novel about a 17-year-old boy named Brent Bishop who goes on a cross-country journey of atonement. At the outset of the novel, Brent’s family has recently moved to Chicago following his father’s promotion at work—the fourth time the family has moved. Brent has struggled to fit in and make friends at each new school he’s attended. He tries to win approval from his classmates by wearing trendy... Read Whirligig Summary

... Read Witchcraft for Wayward Girls Summary