Study guides: popular books - Page 2 | Just Great DataBase
Since his childhood years, Aldous Huxley was surrounded by good examples of scientists, teachers and writers. This kind of exposure put him in a perfect position to integrate scientific findings into literature and deliver the story the way a teacher would lead his students through a complicated material. He started with satire, making English privileged society a target for his works. Then was...
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...
Despite the fact that “Candide” title has many translation variations, it is still a one of the most famous and studied works of French Literature. Be it “All For The Best” or “The Optimist” – this satirical text was originally banned due to harsh criticism towards religion, politics, and morals of the time. Voltaire wrote a parody that is also based on...
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...
In 1729 Jonathan Swift published his work that carried an immensely long title but has become known under “A Modest Proposal” name. The book is a major social text exploring the living conditions in Ireland and the attitude towards the Irish from other nationalities. Today it’s hard to imagine a situation in which a parent would sell his kid, but this concept is exactly what...
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...
“Crime and Punishment” is one of the most difficult literary works not only in the Fyodor Dostoyevsky portfolio but of the whole world literary heritage. In our times, when the majority of population learn about the books by the movies, quick read anything that is longer than ten pages and get an idea about the plot from the reviews, it’s not easy to take up a challenge of a...
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 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...
Le Morte d’Arthur is now one of the most famous interpretations of the legends about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It accurately interprets all the known legends about the knights, adding some that Sir Thomas Malory wrote by himself. Translating and compilating all the legends he could find and proved to be original, Sir Thomas Malory created the fullest book of these...
“Song of Solomon” is a book by Toni Morrison that talks about the life of Macon “Milkman”. Some might say that it is a story of a privileged child, and others say it’s a story about the symbolic life of a generation of people who have been oppressed for centuries and deserve to have a good life now. Macon “Milkman” Dead III is a son of a rich African...
One thing Spanish culture is famous for, after delicious food, is chivalric romances. And then comes the legendary “Don Quixote”. Written in the beginning of the 16th century, the book conquered its place among best literature fiction works and was referenced by numerous authors in later years. Inspired by the great novels and even greater stories, a middle-aged gentleman...
Le Pere Goriot or Father Goriot is a novel by Honoré de Balzac that tells the story of an old man, who struggles to provide his daughters with enough money to have a better life than his own. This book is considered one of the best and more serious novels by Balzac that is praised for its complex characters and unusual plotline. The main character though isn’t Goriot himself, but a...
Ray Bradbury was born in the USA in the 1920s. Together with his family he had to move around quite a lot in his life and mostly taught himself through visiting the libraries. Before becoming a popular science fiction writer, he made a career of writing TV scripts and articles for science magazines. His dystopia “Fahrenheit 451” is centered around censorship of mass media and books...
Leaves of Grass is a poetry book of Walt Whitman that is considered the golden classic of modern poetry. It is the most important work of all the life of the author. Whitman revised it for all his life, adding, replacing and switching different poems, until their quantity exceeded four hundred. Whitman is considered the father of the truly American spirit. While most of the poetry at his time...
Many authors have pondered upon the future industrial revolution was going to bring to Europe and whole world. Mary Shelley was one of them. Even though she wrote her signature novel, “Frankenstein”, as a part of an informal writing competition, it later became a best-seller and a classic of all times. Some might say that the book teaches people not to be selfish about our own...
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...