Grief
"The art of losing isn't hard to master," wrote poet Elizabeth Bishop. Perhaps she meant that we will all face loss at some point in our lives. In this collection, we have brought together texts that take up the universal experience of grief.
Elif Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World was published in 2019. Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist who advocates for women’s and LGBTQIA+ rights through her fiction. Shafak’s 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World examines the life of a sex worker who was murdered in Istanbul, Turkey, exploring key moments in her life while her friends desperately try to arrange her funeral. The novel investigates topics like violence against... Read 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World Summary
Susan Meissner’s A Fall of Marigolds (2014) is an amalgamation of several literary genres, including historical fiction and romance. Meissner is well-known for setting her stories against the backdrop of significant historical events, and this particular story was inspired by filmmaker Lorie Conway’s documentary about Ellis Island, Forgotten Ellis Island. Meissner intends to donate a portion of her profits of the book to the Save the Ellis Island foundation, which is working to restore the... Read A Fall of Marigolds Summary
After Ever After is a young adult novel written by American author Jordan Sonnenblick and published in 2010. It is the sequel to Sonnenblick’s debut novel, Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, which came out in 2004 but focused on a different protagonist. While the first book revolves around Steven Alper, After Ever After explores his younger brother Jeff’s perspective as he navigates eighth grade alongside his best friend, Tad, and his girlfriend, Lindsey. Sonnenblick, who... Read After Ever After Summary
A Game of Thrones is a 1996 epic fantasy novel by George R. R. Martin and is the first in his long-running A Song of Ice and Fire series. The novel introduces the audience to the fictional world of Westeros, where characters become embroiled in a complicated web of plots, conspiracies, and betrayals as they pursue power. A Game of Thrones won numerous awards on publication and was adapted for television in 2011. This guide... Read A Game of Thrones Summary
A Great Reckoning (2016) is the 12th novel in the Inspector Gamache series. The series consists of contemporary mysteries written by the Canadian author Louise Penny. Like the other novels in the series, A Great Reckoning revolves around the small village of Three Pines, Quebec, and its inhabitants. The novel includes a standalone murder mystery plot and references to events in other novels within the series; Penny explores themes of parenthood, loss, and betrayal. This... Read A Great Reckoning Summary
A House for Mr. Biswas is a 1961 novel by V. S. Naipaul. The story takes a postcolonial perspective of the life of a Hindu Indian man in British-owned and occupied Trinidad. Now regarded as one of Naipaul's most significant novels, A House for Mr. Biswas has won numerous awards and has been adapted as a musical, a radio drama, and a television show. This guide is written using an eBook version of the 2001... Read A House for Mr. Biswas Summary
First published in 2006, Alabama Moon by Watt Key is a realistic middle grade novel set in 1980 in rural Alabama. After being raised by his survivalist father, 10-year-old Moon Blake knows he can acquire anything he needs from the forest. When his father dies, Moon sets out for Alaska as Pap instructed. On his journey, Moon finds conflict with authorities, peers, “the system,” and a constable intent on breaking his spirit. This guide follows... Read Alabama Moon Summary
All My Sons is a play by Arthur Miller, first performed in 1947. Based on a true story, All My Sons tells the story of a munitions factory owner who is accused of producing defective engines for aircraft. The play received many awards, ran for 328 shows on Broadway, and has been twice adapted as a film. This guide is based on the 2015 Penguin Classics edition of Miller’s Collected Plays. Plot SummaryJoe Keller is... Read All My Sons Summary
Almost, Maine is a play in two acts, and is comprised of a prologue, a four-scene first act, an interlogue, a four-scene second act (one of which has two different versions one can choose from), and finally an Epilogue. The title refers to an imagined town in Northern Maine, named Almost, that the playwright, John Cariani, writes, “doesn’t quite exist” (11). Each scene consists of at least two main characters, and, aside from the Prologue... Read Almost, Maine Summary
A Monster Calls (2011) was written by Patrick Ness, illustrated by Jim Kay, and the original idea for the novel is credited to the late Siobhan Dowd. Ness wrote the novel in Dowd’s memory after she passed away in 2007 from breast cancer. Set in present-day England, A Monster Calls is a young adult fantasy novel that explores topics of terminal illness, grief, death, anger, and the grieving process through the eyes of a child;... Read A Monster Calls Summary
Another Brooklyn is a 2016 novel by Jacqueline Woodson. After the narrator, August, returns home to care for her dying father, she runs into her former friend Sylvia. This encounter leads her to reflect on her childhood in Brooklyn in the 1970s and the way she coped with her mother’s death. The novel unfolds in fragments: each chapter moves between August’s girlhood memories and adult life as an ivy-league educated anthropologist who studies cultural rituals... Read Another Brooklyn Summary
Sheldon Vanauken’s celebrated memoir A Severe Mercy is a moving portrait of deep love confronted with suffering and death. Published in 1977, A Severe Mercy was written by Vanauken from the compilation of many years’ worth of journal entries, hand-written letters, and firsthand accounts of the people and events that the narrative relates. As a Yale- and Oxford-trained scholar and professor of English and an accomplished poet and author, Vanauken brings his literary expertise to... Read A Severe Mercy Summary
“A Temporary Matter” by American author Jhumpa Lahiri was originally published in the New Yorker in 1998. Published in 1999, Lahiri’s Pulitzer Prize-winning debut short story collection Interpreter of Maladies opens with “A Temporary Matter.” The story follows Shoba and Shukumar, an Indian American married couple in their thirties, as they reconnect for one hour each evening during a planned electricity outage. Over the course of five nights, Shoba and Shukumar explore the complexities of... Read A Temporary Matter Summary
Pat Conroy’s 1995 novel Beach Music is a work of historical fiction. Set primarily in South Carolina, the novel follows a community fractured by memories of the Holocaust and the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s. Beach Music explores the nature of generational trauma and the way our pasts shape our futures. The power of forgiveness and the differences between duty and loyalty are also prominent themes. The setting and culture of the American... Read Beach Music Summary
Beartown is a 2017 novel by Fredrik Backman. It is set in the eponymous town and focuses on the local junior hockey team. Set against the backdrop of a depressed town that is obsessed with the sport, it examines themes of parental control, the cost of keeping secrets, loyalty, family, and regret. The novel unfolds over fifty chapters and is told in brief scenes, with an omniscient narrator occasionally interjecting philosophical maxims and sketching out... Read Beartown Summary