Study guides: popular books - Page 10 | Just Great DataBase

Herzog by Saul Bellow is a novel that features an original narrative style - mostly it consists of the letters of the protagonist, a Jewish man in his forties named Herzog, who survives through the midlife crisis. His two marriages were unlucky ones, with the second one ending in a very humiliating and devastating fashion with his wife openly cheating on him and even making him arrange her move...

This novel by John Hersey tells us the six stories of the rare survivors of Hiroshima bombardment. They are different people, not connected to each other by anything except the mere fact that they were the luckiest people who managed to survive the atomic explosion. They are two doctors, two priestesses and two women - a factory worker and a widowed seamstress. Despite each of them tells the...

The whole play is dedicated to the depiction of a single trial that took place in real history: the Scopes (Monkey) Trial that happened in 1925. John T. Scopes, a teacher was accused of teaching his students the theory of evolution created by Charles Darwin. This case was depicted in history inaccurately for a long time, used to propagate either one or the other point of view, but the final...

Leo Tolstoy wrote the major work of the world’s literary heritage entitled “War and Peace” in 1869. It consists of 15 books topped with the philosophical discussions of the epilog that go hand in hand with the narration and plot and make it unique and non-conformant to any typical literature genre. The novel features the French-Russian war of the beginning of 19th century and...

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is a science fiction story that raises lots of philosophical questions. What can be considered an intelligent being? Is humanity something that exists exclusively for humans? What can uncontrolled technical progress lead to? When the world discovered Koko the Gorilla, a gorilla able to communicate with people and express her emotions, feelings and even attitude to the...

Ivanhoe is a romantic novel written by Walter Scott and telling us about the story of the descendant of one of the last Anglo-Saxon noble families under the Norman reign. The interest in medieval culture and ballads inspired Scott to vividly depicts tournaments, battles of honor, fair ladies who need to be rescued and other traditional topics of the knightly literature. Though, more pragmatic...

“Jude the Obscure” was published as a complete book 1895, being broken down into magazine series before that. It has brought its author, Thomas Hardy, both fame and critical persecution. Some of the copies of the book were even withdrawn from libraries.  The novel is about Jude Fawley, who is a young bricklayer in a provincial town. He has a big and sincere wish – to...

Main Street is a satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis that shows us the futility of the idealism and progressive ideas about equality and cultural growth when the environment and society aren’t ready to accept it. But the other side of the satire is not the indifference of the people of the town of Gopher Prairie. It is the excessive idealism of the protagonist of the story, Carol Milford...

Measure for Measure is an interesting play by William Shakespeare, where the principles of his comedies and tragedies mix together. Like in a classic tragedy, there is a hero - a strict judge Angelo - whose desire to obey the law becomes his fatal flaw and almost leads to his downfall. But, as in the comedies, everything ends good and no one suffers too much. The interesting plot turn is...

“Night” is a written testimony of the Nazi German camps composed by Elie Wiesel in 1960. It’s a short read of hundred pages that will leave you thinking about the values of life for months and years after finishing the book. It’s hard to call it a memoir or a deposition of the Second World War victim, but there’s no doubt that it’s a work of art. There are...

We all know the novel “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse, written in 1922, his interpretation of the journey of a young Indian Prince from his life of luxury to his ultimate enlightenment and becoming a Buddha. But only a few of the readers know that it wasn’t the first work of the author dedicated to the theme of search of self and one’s meaning. Demian, written in 1919 is...

Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare is often classified as a romantic comedy, but it can’t clearly be defined as comedy due to its piercing dramatic scenes, especially with the character of the Jewish moneylender Shylock and Portia’s fiery speech about mercy. The other deep topics that are mentioned in the play are the value of friendship (the male friendship bordering with...

This book is considered one of the best children’s books ever written and there is a reason for it. It is historical fiction, based on life of a real Lone Woman whom the author named Karana in the book. The vivid depiction of the wild nature of the Island of the Blue Dolphins Karana lives on, invites the readers to explore the story of this island and Karana’s lost tribe. Once upon a...

Until now there are doubts if Daniel Defoe is a real author of Moll Flanders. It was attributed to him by the first editor and bookseller, as a fiction novel, though the story’s narrator is Moll herself and she states that it is a sincere autobiography. It is hard to believe that a person could have such an intense life, but, if it is so, Moll is one of the most extraordinary con artists...

White Fang is one of the most famous novels by Jack London and definitely his most famous novel about the wildlife. It tells us the story of a wolf cub, who was raised in the wild but then tamed by the people. White Fang lived a harsh life of a service dog and then a fighting one, until a kind-hearted man bought him and tried to rehabilitate the stressed and injured wolf and adjust him to the...

Phaedra is a tragedy based on Greek mythology and dedicated to the only topic: the unrequited love. We see it in many forms: tender affection of star-crossed lovers, all-consuming forbidden passion and the calm love of a caring husband, who doesn’t know that he is not welcomed in his home anymore. The plot is based on the myth about the ancient Greek queen Phaedra, who suddenly and...

Richard III by William Shakespeare is the fourth and the last part of the tetralogy called Henriade by some of the critics. It tells us about the short but bright reign of King Richard III, who is described as a ruthless ruler, ready to do anything and everything to get his power. The play is the one of the longest in the First Folio and can compete only with Hamlet. In the full variant, with...

How many times have you heard people say they would only learn French for having the benefit of reading “The Little Prince” in original language? Published in 1943, the book remains a manifesto of childhood purity and simplicity of life seen through young eyes. Antoine de Saint-Exupery is a French aristocrat and aviator, who spent long time in North America exile after France had...

Hermann Hesse wrote his novel “Steppenwolf” in his typical style: introducing a separate book in a book and combining the literary language with psychoanalytic tricks and real facts. Published in 1927, the text still preserves the signs of the Hesse’s spiritual crisis that he went through in the 1920s. The author begins the story saying that he received Harry Haller’s...

Tartuffe is a classical satire written by Moliere that shows us the story of the aforementioned Tartuffe - a con artist pretending to be a saint and entering the happy and jovial family to parasite on it. We see the characters, complicated enough to fit not only the satirical novel, that is unusual - mostly the writers use sketchy, flat characters to present the virtues and vices they want to...