Study guides: popular books, letter t

The Contender by Robert Lipsyte

The Contender is a debut novel by Robert Lipsyte that tells us the story of a black young man who lives in Harlem with his aunt and cousins. His harsh life is urging him to take the easiest way of criminal life and becoming a thug, but the main character named Alfred Brooks struggles and tries to use his destructive impulses for good. The story of Alfred Brooks is the story of silent rebellion...

The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West

The Day of the Locust is an interesting example of portraying the realistic events through the eyes of the main character - an artist, who sees them as an inspiration for his painting. The novel plays with Hollywood stereotypes, showing the full range of them: from young starlets who appear to be gold-diggers and to greedy and lusty producers. The painting that the protagonist - a young graduate...

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

As other famous works of Erik Larson, “The Devil in the White City” is based on the real historical events that the author studied carefully. He filled them with a new sense and perspective and turned the dry historical facts and personalities into living, breathing characters. Two plotlines - one of the Devil and the other of the main architect of the White City are tightly...

The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare

Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare is considered one of the best comedies of the Bard, but from the modern point of view this comedy has rather dark undertones. Despite some classical plot turns used in it like cross-dressing and double wedding in the end, Two Gentlemen of Verona takes the theme of love, friendship and betrayal much more serious than most of the comedies by...

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles

The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles is a postmodern historical fiction that tells us the story of the aforementioned woman, abandoned by the French lieutenant who returned to France and married there. The woman named Sarah was left disgraced and shun from the society, spending most of her time on the beach and looking at the sea, grieving about her loss and shame. The story starts...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Most of people tend to believe they have never experienced the contemporary literature of Nordic countries until they realize that Stieg Larsson, who wrote the legendary “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, was Swedish.  It is believed that the author wrote the book and especially its main character based on real life events. While we may question whether he really witnessed a...

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck was a bestseller of its time and played a prominent part in getting its author the Nobel Prize for literature. A family drama set in China before the World War I, this book showed the readers the Chinese culture, struggles and hopes, their ideas and worldview. The popularity of the novel also helped Americans during the World War II see the Chinese people as allies...

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

For an offspring of a wealthy Family, Jerome David Salinger didn’t go through a very typical career path. He went to many colleges, but didn’t finish any of them. After that he chose for a military career and combined it with his writing talent. He managed to stir the trouble with his works that are still being mentioned in the context of literature censorship and ethics. “The...

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan is to some extent an autobiographical work. The main character, as the author, is also a daughter of Chinese immigrants to America, she lost her father and knew nothing about her mother’s previous life. So, The Kitchen God’s Wife may seem an attempt to reinterpret author’s own family story. The tale of mother and daughter, who live...

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

“The Bluest Eye” by Tony Morrison is a novel that is set in 1941. Is it a book written in an easy and airy narrative that dwells upon topics that leave everyone uneasy. The eyes of a person. They can tell so much. They are the history, they are the character, they are the ocean and the universe. And for some people like Pecola, they are the sign of being a chosen one. Pecola, an...

The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter

The Light in The Forest by Conrad Richter is a fiction novel telling us the story about the white boy, captured by Native Americans and raised as one of their tribe and then captured by the white people and re-assimilated. The book raises questions of cultural values and the general human values that are above any cultural differences - such as compassion and mercy. The author plays with the...

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“The Great Gatsby” is a novel by American writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald. The book depicts vividly the reality of social morals and economic standing in between the Roaring 20s and Great Depression times. In his early years, Fitzgerald was a smart child but couldn’t fight the boredom of school, which led to him dropping out and signing up for the army. Being a lieutenant in...

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

A legendary sequel written by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is now one of the most read and best sold books of all times. It’s hard to believe that such rich concepts were developed in 1937 and 1949 when Internet and cinematography wasn’t as much of an influence. It’s a mere product of imagination of a man who has always been fond of ancient history, philology, comparison studies...

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann is a philosophical novel that features a surrealistic setting of a sanatorium far away in Swiss mountains that, considering that the pace of time there isn’t constant at all, can be called magical. The protagonist, a man in his twenties named Hans Castorp, goes there to visit his relative, who has tuberculosis, but falls ill himself during the visit and...

The Plague by Albert Camus

The Plague by Albert Camus may be called a great-grandparent of an “apocalyptic log” genre. The main storyline is simple and horrifying: there is a plague outbreak in the city, soon the city is put to quarantine and all the communication with the rest of the world stops. The narrative style is often called similar to Kafka’s: the characters are shown facing something...

The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells

The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells is a realistic sentimental novel that is considered the classic of realistic writing until the present day. Howells portrayal of the love triangle between young Tom and the two Lapham daughters, smart Penelope and beautiful Irene, was often criticized for being plain and too mundane for the romantic story, but the critics almost always agreed at...

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road is a dystopian post-apocalyptic novel by Cormac McCarthy, the bleak setting of which served as the inspiration to the lots of the movie directors, writers and game designers. The story of The Road is the story without hope and even the happy ending is just a bright spot that seems to fade soon with the rest of the light on the dying Earth. The novel tells us the story of the father and...

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

While “The Old Man and the Sea” closes Ernest Hemingway writing career, it also opens his talents from other perspectives and was one of the reasons for him being awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature.  To put it in a nutshell, this short novel is about an old Cuban fisherman. Santiago didn’t have luck with fishing for many days. After eighty-four days of failure, he finally...

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup is a memoir he tried to write as precisely as possible. This book contains no morals like in “Uncle Toms Cabin” and no epiphany. The goal of Northup was to describe the institute of slavery in all its ugliness. Born a free black person and being a skilled carpenter and musician, Solomon was once offered a short-term job in the travelling circus...