Science & Nature

The Hot Zone by Richard Preston is a non-fiction thriller, published in 1994, two years after his article “Crisis in the Hot Zone” appeared in The New Yorker. Preston writes often on Ebola, bioweapons, and emerging viruses. The Hot Zone deals with the breaking of Ebola into the human species and a 1989 incident in which an Ebola-like virus, the Reston virus, sweeps through a monkey quarantine facility outside of Washington, DC. The book served... Read The Hot Zone Summary

The Housekeeper and the Professor, written by Yōko Ogawa, is a work of literary fiction set in modern-day Japan and loosely based on the book The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, a biography of the mathematician Paul Erdös. The Housekeeper and the Professor was originally published in Japanese in 2003; it sold more than one million copies and received the Hon’ya Taisho award in 2004. In 2006, it was adapted into a film version, titled... Read The Housekeeper and the Professor Summary

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot is a non-fiction book that tells the story of Lacks and her HeLa cells, or the immortal cell line that doctors retrieved from her cervical cancer cells. Crown Publishing Group published the book in 2010, and it won a National Academies Communication Award the following year. This guide refers to the Crown 2010 first edition. Henrietta Lacks was a black American woman who died of cancer... Read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Summary

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The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media is a nonfiction graphic novel written by journalist Brooke Gladstone and illustrated by Josh Neufeld. Throughout, Gladstone’s objective is to resist the idea that the media are a machine that manipulates consumers' minds without consent. Instead, she argues that the media are a “degrading, tedious, and transcendent funhouse mirror of America” (xxi). The media “do not control” (xiv) consumers, the media “pander” (xiv) to them. Consumers fear... Read The Influencing Machine Summary

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Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams is a landmark work in the field of psychoanalysis. First published in 1899, it is one of Freud's most famous and influential books. At its core, the book explores the significance of dreams in revealing the unconscious desires, fears, and conflicts of the individual. Freud argues that dreams are not just random collections of images and sensations, as was commonly held in his day. Neither are they inspirations from... Read The Interpretation of Dreams Summary

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H. G. Wells is one of the earliest science fiction authors, sometimes referred to as the father of the genre. His 1897 novel, The Invisible Man, follows an albino scientist who discovers the secret to turning himself invisible. The novel’s blend of fantastical science and realistic, mundane detail is a signature of Wells. This novel has influenced generations of writers and artists, both through its powerful prose and fascinating plot, as well as for its... Read The Invisible Man Summary

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“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” is a lyric poem written by William Butler Yeats, a prominent Irish poet, essayist, and dramatist, who was known for his promotion of Irish culture and its political autonomy. The poem appeared early in Yeats’s career and demonstrates his concern with incorporating positive Irish images and mythology into his writing as part of the Celtic Revival movement of the late 19th century. In the poem, the speaker expresses their longing... Read The Lake Isle of Innisfree Summary

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Published in 2007, Jacqueline Davies’s The Lemonade War is the first installment in an award-winning series, which also includes The Lemonade Crime (2011) and The Bell Bandit (2012). The fictional children’s novel follows the Treski siblings as they compete for the most successful lemonade stand. The competition takes place the summer before Jessie Treski, an academically minded student, joins her older brother Evan’s fourth-grade class. The chapters alternate between Jessie and Evan’s perspectives.Plot SummaryWhen the... Read The Lemonade War Summary

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