Study guides: popular books - Page 16 | Just Great DataBase

A magnificent tragedy “King Lear” by William Shakespeare laid grounds for many great theatre plays, movies, and stories. There have been numerous adaptations and interpretations for the play, but its original version remains the most popular among the readers. The main character of the play is a British monarch of the same name. He is old and wants to hand over the reigns of the...

The great poet of all times, William Shakespeare, is known not only for his distinctive style, but also for great productivity. Even though this is one of the reasons why some experts still have doubts over the real authorship of his works. “Tempest” is believed to be his last work and might as well be his best. It is also much more organized in style and is believed to signify...

No matter how rigid and defined the setting is, “The Ambassadors” is a book about emotions and emotional freedom. We meet the main character, Lambert Strether, a middle-aged and very ordinary man, who decides to marry a very proper woman. But his fiancée-to-be sets a condition: he shall find her delinquent son in Paris and return him home, preventing him from a scandalous...

“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Betty Smith. It tells us about the childhood and growing up of a girl from a troubled but loving family that lives in the poor district of New York City. It won the approval of the audience almost immediately for the realistic and vivid depiction of life of Brooklyn and the main heroine’s aspirations, hopes...

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare is a comedy that can be seen as controversial if we apply today’s moral standards to it. It involves things that are now considered forced marriage, abusive relations and domestic psychological violence. We should take into consideration that the severe misogyny was the usual thing in Shakespearean times and a strong-willed woman who...

If you love to explore the creations of such authors as Sophocles or Euripides, then you surely must discover the works of Aeschylus. He was born in Greece and is often considered the father of Greek drama and tragic dramaturgy genre as it is today. It’s hard to believe, but he was the first to introduce more than one actor on the stage.  “Agamemnon” is the first play of...

“The House of the Spirits” by Isabel Allende is a family saga that describes the life of four generations, no less. It starts from the story of del Valle sisters, one of which possesses paranormal powers and then grows into the story of the whole new town emerging at the coast when their family has to move from their hometown. The story of the family and their house, later becoming...

One of the most famous existential works, “No Exit” by Jean-Paul Sartre is a source of inspiration for lots of modern writers and playwrights. The depiction of Hell as a very comfortable and hospitable place was something new for the audience of that time. But when the plot of the story starts to unwind, we understand the main idea that the author tries to tell us: the hell is inside...

One of the pastoral comedies by William Shakespeare that continues the tradition of the jovial worlds of cross-dressing, love dodecahedrons and multiple marriages in the final. Despite we can imagine the classical plotline the traces of which we can see in the other comedies of the Bard, “As You Like It” is particularly enjoyable, because of the variety of independent characters...

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a novel that describes the family life of Czech couple, Tomas and Tereza, where Tomas is obsessed with his work and is an incurable womanizer, who considers flirt, sex and affairs a necessary part of his life, completely disconnected from love. Other characters are his lover and friend Sabina and her own second lover Franz, who loves her sincerely. The author...

The painful theme of Vietnam War still is acute for the American society, even after all these years. But only a few authors depicted it with such degree of truth as Walter Dean Myers. The war here is shown through the eyes of a very young adult, who enlists the army to support his family, not knowing about the hell that waits for him and his fellow soldiers ahead. The war described by Myers...

“The House of Seven Gables” is a Gothic novel, full of impossible coincidences, haunted places and family curses. Do not expect too much realism from it, just prepare for the great and enjoyable story of the family whose patriarch was once cruel and unfair to the wrong person. The vivid description of the grim and rusty House of the Seven Gables that opens the book immediately sets...

The Prelude by William Wordsworth is an epic autobiographical poem the author dedicated all his life to. What is interesting is that The Prelude was meant to be only the first part, the introduction of a philosophical trilogy of poems that reflects Woodsworth’s worldview. But, unfortunately, the poet passed away in his eighties, leaving only The Prelude completed. The literature critics...

The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare is one of his several “problem plays”. It starts as a classical tragedy, but ends in a comedic and light-hearted way, despite even this can undo the death of the innocent at the beginning. The main plot turns were borrowed from Robert Greene’s pastoral novel Pandosto. The names of characters and places are changed, but the...

Flannery O’Connor is a good example of a writer who didn’t just accidently “stumbled” into this profession. She was working the writing and editing jobs since her childhood and even got a master scholarship because of her talent. It was at a young age of twenty-one that O’Connor published her first novel. Proud owner of numerous awards, among which National Book...

Lewis Carroll wrote a continuation for his “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” six years after the original book was published. “Through the Looking-Glass” picks up the story of a curious and fearless young girl six months after the previous book has left it. And this time the adventures are even more crazy and fascinating than before! This time Alice steps through...

It’s worth reading “The Alchemist” just to see what Paulo Coelho is capable of writing in just two weeks of time. It didn’t happen immediately after publishing, but like many of the other author’s creations, the book became a bestseller and is now available to read in over 70 languages. It has even found its place among the self-help book sections due to its content...

Political influence and power games have always been at the center of literary inspiration sources. A famous Italian political expert, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote a great treatise “The Prince” on the philosophy of politics that talks about this topic in innovative ways and unusual approaches. The book is divided into 26 chapters that each describe different state models, various types...

Despite the name of the novel is taken from the nursery rhyme, the plotline is dramatic and full of tragic events. The name has a lot to deal with the narrative - the book tells us about the life of the cynical and liberal populist of American South in 1930s, Willie Stark. This is the story of his rising to power and turning from somewhat idealistic lawyer to the magnificent, overly charismatic...

“The Natural” is a novel about baseball and suddenly it is a novel about almost paranormal mystery. The author brilliantly merges so familiar and close-to-earth game with all the typical struggles and rivalry in the team with something much, much more subtle, that gives the book the fleur of Gothic mystery. The story tells us the biography of a young rising star of baseball that...