Study guides: popular books - Page 14 | Just Great DataBase
“A Lesson Before Dying” is a fictional novel written by Ernest Gaines. The book was nominated for numerous well-respected prizes and awards. It talks about a man who is sentenced to death for the crime he didn't commit. The author was born in Louisiana during the Depression times. He himself was involved with manual labor since early ages and then moved to California, where he...
“The Last of the Mohicans” is one part of a number of historical novels written by James Fenimore Cooper. The events of the book take place in the second part of the 18th century when the French-Indian War took place. It is a must read for most American high school students and one of the best books about this period all over the world. In the beginning the reader finds himself...
“Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” is a novel written in 1961 by Harriet Ann Jacobs. It is an autobiography and presents female outlook into slavery. Being a very sentimental text, it depicts the reality of author living through slavery and buying the freedom for herself and her children. The author started writing the book right after moving to New York. She wanted the women of...
“The Color Purple” is a story about the social position of African-American women, written by Alice Walker in 1982. The book talks about pretty sad and explicit events in the lives of the most vulnerable members of the nation. It is a known fact that it used to be okay for white people to think of themselves better in comparison to those of other skin colors. But that’s...
Anthony Burgess published “A Clockwork Orange” in 1962 and his work was later adapted into a legendary Stanley Kubrick movie. The movie was actually made based on a shortened version of the book, so it’s definitely worth discovering the full story even if you’ve already seen it in pictures. Youth violence, teenage rebellions and different subculture variations dominate...
Not everybody knows that Tolkien first wrote “The Hobbit” and only then started working on the “Lord of the Rings”. It wasn’t his first text, but it brought together the author’s memories of the World War I, knowledge of philology, ancient myths, as well as the characters from previous stories. The full title of the book is “The Hobbit, or There and Back...
“Bless Me, Ultima” is a book written in 1972 by Rudolfo Anaya. It is a leading piece of literature in the Chicano literary genre. The story might not be the reader’s first choice among the coming-of-age books selection, but it is definitely the best fit for discovering the multicultural aspect of the globalized world. It is rich in special language mix, vivid descriptions of...
“The Poisonwood Bible” offers a different outlook on migration literature. Barbara Kingsolver talks about an American family who relocated to Africa. The text has made a powerful impact on the Western readers who often find themselves entrapped in the bubble of their smooth everyday life. The story takes place at the end of the 1950s. The protagonists are the Prince family: a father...
“The Brothers Karamazov” is the last book written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in 1880. It is a rare case where the philosophy of the content is successfully mixed with the excitement of the plot. One of the protagonists of the novel, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is a cold and rough man. He gets the joy in life while making money and sleeping with women, two of which he married. His children...
There’s no more popular plot in the science fiction genre than traveling in time. And Herbert George Wells is considered to be the father of time traveling as his works dwell a lot on this topic. “The Time Machine” was published in 1895 and has inspired many films, books, comics, TV series and other works of art that discover the concept of displacing the body forward and...
Despite such a title, the main character is a perfectly healthy man. Dostoyevsky ironically portrays the attitude of the society to the hero, whose only flaw is his kindness, open-heartedness and naivete. He is young, handsome and rich - moreover, he is the Prince. Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin just lacks the skill of deception and plotting that is so valuable amongst the upper-crust society. So, his...
“All the Pretty Horses” is the book that made its author, Cormac McCarthy, popular after its publishing in 1992. This book is about becoming independent – from your parents, from your own insecurities, from the society that entraps you. It has been nominated and won numerous book awards. Who didn’t try or at least dreamed of running away from parents in the childhood years...
Eugene O’Neill wrote a text that later became one of the best-acclaimed and most popular plays in the USA. “Long Day’s Journey into Night” was first played in 1956 and has won the author numerous prestigious awards ever since. Eugene O’Neill has been called the greatest drama writer for years and is still one of the favorite play authors among English-speaking...
“Notes from Underground” is the creation of Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It is a memoir of an undefined man who goes through dark times. It’s not just a literary piece, it’s a chemical substance. It is a kind of book that changes the reader after the last page is over. The first part of the story is a monologue of a retired man. By reading through his confession the...
Madeleine L’Engle wrote “A Wrinkle in Time” in 1962. The book is most known for its spectacular illustrations by Leo and Diane Dillon that made the edition known and even more frequently read. The protagonist of the story is a young girl Meg Murry. Her father was taken hostage by the evil forces, so she decided to rescue him, which means to travel in time and to another planet...
Wilson Rawls wrote “Where the Red Fern Grows” in 1961. Wilson wasn't a typical representative of the writing class: as a young boy he didn't receive a good education, started reading only in high school and had poor command of grammar. It was his wife who motivated him to keep expressing his ideas in the writing and she herself edited the books. “Where the Red Fern...
The legendary Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” in 1981. It is a story about a murder told from a perspective of those who committed and observed it. The way the events are reconstructed creates a bit of literary chaos in the text and reminds absurd theatre genre. Imagine a small provincial town. A big and lavish wedding has just been celebrated and it...
“The Secret Life of Bees” of the authorship of Sue Monk Kidd is a book about a 14-year old girl who lost her mother. It is a story about losses and gains, faith and forgiveness. It is also a story about people who have faced the tough decision of choosing what really matters. Lily Melissa Owens still vaguely remembers the day when her mother died. Her father, T. Ray, treats her badly...
“My Antonia” is a prominent novel by American writer Willa Cather. It is the last and the best work of her Prairie Trilogy, which begins with “O Pioneers!”, and is followed by “The Song of the Lark.” This novel is a real story about the fate of immigrant settlers who mastered the lands of the American West at the turn of the century. The turn of the 19th and...
Joseph Andrews is called an epic poem and is often compared to Don Quixote by Cervantes. But, unlike Cervantes’ work, the humor in this poem is much more kind and light, though still portraying the people from their best and worst sides simultaneously. This poem was a satire, a sincere comedy and a protest against the moral and technical limitations of literature of Fielding’s time...