Daughters & Sons
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child," exclaims William Shakespeare's King Lear. The fragility or strength of the bond between parents and their children is an eternally relevant theme in literature. In this study guide collection, we've put together texts that examine what it means to be a son or daughter.
Lisa Graff’s Absolutely Almost (2014) is a middle-grade novel about self-acceptance and recognizing one’s own worth. The story follows 10-year-old Albie’s journey along this path. Albie has never been the best at anything, especially anything to do with school. He continually falls short of others’ expectations, especially his parents’. However, his new nanny, Calista, sees him differently—and gradually, she helps Albie discover his strengths and take pride in himself.Graff is an American writer who pens... Read Absolutely Almost Summary
Miriam Toews’s A Complicated Kindness (2004) is about Nomi Nickel, an adolescent living in the religious Mennonite town of East Village whose coming of age takes place against the backdrop of her family’s unraveling. Toews, who grew up in the Mennonite community of Steinbach, Manitoba, is the author of several novels set in Mennonite communities, many of which are critical of aspects of the faith. This novel, Toews’s third, has garnered considerable acclaim and many... Read A Complicated Kindness Summary
“A Devoted Son” is a short story by Indian author Anita Desai originally published in her 1978 collection Games at Twilight and Other Stories. The story is about the relationship between a father and son and examines how time and perspective can change the way actions and intentions are perceived. This collection also features another well-known story, "Games at Twilight," Varma is proud because his son, Rakesh, is at the top of the academic list... Read A Devoted Son Summary
An epic poem composed by the Roman poet Virgil between the years of 29 and 19 BCE, the Aeneid represents one of the most important and influential works in Western literature. It centers on the story of Aeneas, a refugee from the Trojan War who was fated to found the Roman nation in Italy. This guide refers to the Oxford World Classic’s edition of the Aeneid, translated by Frederick Ahl. All study guide citations refer... Read Aeneid 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 Gathering of Days: A New England Girl’s Journal, 1830-1832 is the best-known book by children’s author and educator Joan W. Blos. The novel is presented as the fictional journal of Catherine Hall, a young girl living in New Hampshire before the Civil War. Through Catherine’s journal entries, the novel portrays the daily life, challenges, and changes in a young girl’s world over two years, including personal loss, the complexities of friendship, and an encounter... Read A Gathering of Days Summary
A House for Mr. Biswas is a 1961 historical fiction 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. Naipaul is also known for the works The Mimic... Read A House for Mr. Biswas Summary
Esmeralda’s family relocates from Puerto Rico to Brooklyn in 1961, when Esmeralda is 13 years old. On the cusp of womanhood, Esmeralda receives warnings from her family members, and especially her mother, Mami, to watch out for the many algos or dangers lurking in the city. Struggling to adjust to city life in Brooklyn, Esmeralda misses Puerto Rico, and she dreams of the day when she will return. Initially put into remedial classes because she... Read Almost a Woman Summary
American Pastoral (1997) by Philip Roth examines in detail one man’s quest for the American dream and the fragility of the entire enterprise. Roth, one of the most critically acclaimed novelists of the 20th century, focuses his narrative microscope through the eyes of Nathan Zuckerman, his literary alter ego from whose perspective he has written 10 other novels, including Zuckerman Unbound (1981), The Anatomy Lesson (1983), The Human Stain (2000), and The Plot Against America... Read American Pastoral Summary
A Pale View of Hills (1982) is Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel. Born in Nagasaki in 1954, Ishiguro immigrated with his family to the United Kingdom when he was five years old. Despite his family’s Japanese origins, the author frequently states in interviews that his experience with Japanese culture is very limited, as he spent all his adult life in England. Simultaneously, however, growing up in a Japanese family developed in Ishiguro a different perspective compared... Read A Pale View of Hills Summary
John Grisham’s 1988 novel A Time to Kill tells the story of attorney Jake Brigance and his infamous client, Carl Lee Hailey. Set against the backdrop of racially charged Mississippi, the legal thriller examines themes of inequality, intolerance, and retribution. Other books in Grisham’s Jake Brigance series include Sycamore Row (2013) and A Time for Mercy (2020).The novel begins when two white men, Billy Ray Cobb and Pete Willard, abduct and rape a ten-year old... Read A Time to Kill Summary
“Average Waves in Unprotected Waters,” originally published in the February 28, 1977 edition of The New Yorker, is one of American author Anne Tyler’s most anthologized stories. Through the third-person-limited point of view of the protagonist, Bet Blevins, Tyler presents the story of a single mother on the day she intends to institutionalize her developmentally disabled son, Arnold. As Bet struggles to navigate her complex emotions regarding Arnold, the story explores themes of the conflicting... Read Average Waves in Unprotected Waters Summary
Toni Morrison’s Beloved was published in 1987. It is inspired by the real story of an African American woman named Margaret Garner, who, while attempting to liberate herself and her children from enslavement, killed her own daughter to prevent her capture and enslavement. It tells the story of Sethe, a self-liberated, formerly enslaved woman who kills her daughter in the same manner. This daughter later returns to haunt the family. The novel is widely classified... Read Beloved Summary
Bird Box is a 2014 post-apocalyptic, dystopian horror novel by Josh Malerman. The story follows a woman’s struggle to protect two children in a world where people are driven to violence by unseen monsters, touching on such themes as paranoia, raising children to deal with an uncertain future, and the dangers of exceptionalism. Bird Box won a Michigan Notable Book Award and was also nominated for the James Herbert Award as well as the Bram... Read Bird Box Summary
Breath, Eyes, Memory is a novel by Haitian American author Edwidge Danticat, first published in 1994. The book is semi-autobiographical: like the protagonist, 12-year-old Sophie Caco, Danticat herself was born in Haiti but moved to the United States at a young age. She has since written several novels and short stories about Haiti, immigration, and the complex ways that one’s identity is formed by where they are from and where they now live. The novel... Read Breath, Eyes, Memory Summary
City of Glass by Cassandra Clare (Walker Books, 2009) is the third installment of the young adult urban fantasy Mortal Instruments series and chronicles an epic Shadowhunter battle against an old foe’s return. City of Glass was a finalist for the Teen Choice Book of the Year and for the 2009 Goodreads Choice Awards. Clare was born in Iran to American parents. She spent several years traveling before she settled in the United States, where... Read City of Glass Summary
Cujo, a horror-thriller novel first published in 1981, is the 10th novel by the American “King of Horror,” Stephen King. It was inspired by a trip the author took to a mechanic in rural Maine whose St. Bernard nearly attacked King. Cujo received several accolades upon its release and won the British Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1982. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1983.The citations in this study... Read Cujo Summary
British author Roald Dahl first published Danny the Champion of the World in 1975. This award-winning children’s novel was adapted into a made-for-TV movie in 1989. The story follows Danny and his single-father, William, as they concoct a plan to poach all of the pheasants from a mean, rich landowner’s woods. Dahl’s children’s books are humorous and unsentimental, usually featuring a heroic young protagonist and an obnoxious adult antagonist. Dahl’s other works for children include The Gremlins... Read Danny, the Champion of the World Summary
Deacon King Kong was published in 2020 and written by American author James McBride. It is an example of near-historical fiction written about American cities and social issues. McBride’s 1995 memoir about growing up in a mixed-race family in Brooklyn, The Color of Water, was both a commercial and critical success, and his own life experience aligns with some of the narratives and issues in Deacon King Kong. McBride’s novel The Good Lord Bird won... Read Deacon King Kong Summary
Dear John is a novel published in 2006 by Nicholas Sparks, a best-selling American romance writer. In 2010, the book was adapted into a feature film starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried. Dear John tells the story of star-crossed lovers: John Tyree, a soldier on leave, falls for Savannah Lynn Curtis, a visiting college student. After 9/11, John must choose between duty to his country and the people who love him, both of whom he... Read Dear John Summary
Premiering in 1975, Death and the King’s Horseman is a play written by Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka. Soyinka is known for his plays, including A Dance of the Forests (1963) and The Lion and the Jewel (1962). Death and the King’s Horseman is set in Oyo, Nigeria, during World War II and tells the story of Elesin Oba, the titular king’s horseman who must die by ritual suicide after the Yoruba king dies. The colonial government... Read Death and the King's Horseman Summary
In Dreamland, a young adult novel by Sarah Dessen, a teenage girl named Caitlin O’Koren reacts to the disappearance of her sister by breaking away from the path that was set out for her. The novel is broken into three parts that focus on the core of the conflicts in each section. Part I, “Cass,” traces the O’Koren family after Cass, the eldest of two daughters, runs away instead of attending Yale. Part II, entitled... Read Dreamland Summary
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. Published in 1995, two years before Obama's run for the Illinois State Senate, the book narrates Obama's attempt to grapple with the legacy of his mostly absent father (hereafter referred to as "Obama Sr.") and to come to terms with his racial identity. The memoir covers Obama's life from his childhood in... Read Dreams From My Father Summary
Duma Key by Stephen King is a novel in the literary-horror genre, praised for its eerie, spooky atmosphere and suspenseful build-up. Published in 2008, Duma Key is the first novel by King to be set in Florida. The book follows Edgar Freemantle as he moves from Minnesota to the island of Duma (one of the Florida Keys, or small islands) after a life-changing accident. Tormented by phantom-limb pain from his amputation and unable to remember... Read Duma Key Summary
Dumplin’, a YA novel by author Julie Murphy, is about a small-town Texas teen named Willowdean “Will” Dixon. Will is the book’s main character and first-person narrator. Through Will’s narration, the book tells the story of Will’s weight and how it affects her relationships with her former beauty pageant winning mother, Rosie Dixon; with her pretty best friend, Ellen Dryver; and with her romantic interest and coworker, the heartthrob Bo Larson. However, Will thinks that... Read Dumplin Summary
Ellen Foster is a work of adult fiction by US novelist Kaye Gibbons, first published by Algonquin Books in 1987. The novel was Gibbons’s debut, and it won the Sue Kaufman Prize for literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a notable citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. Critics praised the novel for its unsentimental outlook and the wry, distinct voice of its protagonist. Ellen, a young girl living in the American... Read Ellen Foster Summary
Everything, Everything was published in 2015 and written by Jamaican American author Nicola Yoon. It is a contemporary young adult novel that focuses on family relationships, grief, and teenage romance. Told primarily through the first-person narration of protagonist Madeline Whittier, the novel also uses a nontraditional storytelling method that incorporates various “documents,” like drawings, emails, and book reviews. Everything, Everything was adapted into a feature film in 2017.Plot SummaryMadeline Whittier, an 18-year-old living in a... Read Everything, Everything Summary
Renowned Canadian/American author Polly Horvath published the middle-grade novel everything on a Waffle in 2001. Over two years, the book received numerous accolades, including Mr. Christie’s Book Award, the Boston Globe Horn Book Award, the ALSC Notable Children’s Book, a Newbery Honor Medal, and the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize. Written in the first person, 11-year-old narrator Primrose tells of her parents disappearing in a typhoon off the coast of British Columbia. Primrose discounts... Read Everything on a Waffle Summary
The American writer Virginia C. Andrews was born Cleo Virginia Andrews, in Portsmouth, Virginia. Known popularly as V.C. Andrews, she became a novelist late in life, having previously worked as a commercial artist, illustrator, and portrait painter. Flowers in the Attic (1979), which she wrote an early draft of in 1975, became a bestseller, although The Washington Post declared the book “deranged swill” and Andrews possibly the “worst writer I have ever read.” However, for... Read Flowers In The Attic Summary
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006) is a graphic novel memoir written and illustrated by underground cartoonist Alison Bechdel. The book centers on Bechdel’s relationship with her late father Bruce Allen Bechdel, who died in what she believes was a death by suicide. Fun Home is a non-linear narrative that rehashes events from Alison Bechdel’s youth and adolescence. Her memories are presented in the comic panels, overlayed with her prosaic, retrospective musings in text boxes... Read Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Summary
Published in 2004, Gilead is Marilynne Robinson’s second novel and the first in the Gilead trilogy, which includes Home (2008) and Lila (2014). The story is written as a letter from dying Congregationalist minister John Ames to his young son. The letter is a bittersweet account of John’s life. With a slow, thoughtful pace and intimate tone, John shares past family memories and resolves an old personal grievance with his best friend’s son. As John... Read Gilead Summary
“Good Country People” first appeared in Flannery O’Connor’s short story collection A Good Man is Hard to Find in 1955 and is widely regarded as an exemplary work of Southern Gothic literature. Like many of O’Connor’s works, “Good Country People” contains a critique of the American South and religious hypocrisy rooted in O’Connor’s worldview informed by her Catholic faith. This study guide uses the 1988 Library of America edition of Flannery O’Connor’s Collected Works. The... Read Good Country People Summary
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2016) is a two-part play written by Jack Thorne, based on an original story collaboratively created by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Thorne himself. Set in the universe of the Harry Potter books penned by J. K. Rowling, the play follows events occurring 19 years after the epilogue of the seventh book, The Deathly Hallows (2007); the story revolves around Albus Potter, the second son and middle child... Read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Summary
Hippolytus is a tragedy by Euripides, originally produced in Athens at the City Dionysia of 428 BCE. The tetralogy to which Hippolytus belonged earned Euripides the first prize that year. According to ancient authorities, this was Euripides’s second attempt at a play on the myth of Hippolytus, his earlier play having apparently horrified contemporary Athenians with its allegedly sensational depiction of Phaedra. Euripides’s original Hippolytus no longer survives, but the revised play quickly came to... Read Hippolytus Summary
Published in 2016, Hour of the Bees is a young adult magical realism novel by Lindsay Eagar. Set in contemporary New Mexico, the story follows 12-year-old Carol as she spends the summer on her grandfather’s sheep ranch, helping her family prepare it for sale and helping care for her grandfather, who has dementia. However, her grandfather’s stories of the land’s magic and history cause her to fall in love with it. Hour of the Bees... Read Hour of the Bees Summary
Originally published in 2002, Markus Zusak’s I Am the Messenger is a young adult realistic fiction novel. Ed Kennedy, the protagonist and narrator, is a 19-year-old cab driver whose average life takes an unexpected turn when he stops a bank robber. After this moment of heroism, he begins receiving mysterious playing cards with cryptic messages that lead him to people in need of his assistance. The novel is set in suburban Sydney and draws on... Read I Am The Messenger Summary
I’ll Give You the Sun (2015) is an award-winning novel penned by Jandy Nelson about relationships, art, and destiny. It follows the story of twins Noah and Jude Sweetwine who once shared a close relationship but find themselves barely speaking to each other two years after their mother’s death.Jandy Nelson is an American author who writes young adult fiction. I’ll Give You the Sun is her second novel, which won numerous awards and honors, including... Read I'll Give You the Sun Summary
One of his several short stories set in Northern Michigan, “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was first published in a 1924 issue of the Parisian literary magazine Transatlantic Review. The next year, “Indian Camp” was included in Hemingway’s first story collection, In Our Time. “Indian Camp” has since become one of Hemingway’s most heavily anthologized works. Based partly on Hemingway’s visits to Petoskey, Michigan, during childhood and young adulthood, “Indian Camp” follows young Nick... Read Indian Camp Summary
In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens is a collection of essays, speeches, and letters by Alice Walker. The collection was published in 1983. Walker is also a novelist and a poet. Her most famous novel, The Color Purple, was published in 1982 and won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1983. The novel was adapted into a movie as well as a musical. These essays are collected from different books and... Read In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens Summary
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“I Stand Here Ironing” was originally published in 1961 in Tell Me a Riddle, Tillie Olsen’s first collection of short stories. Since then, it has greatly impacted feminist scholars and creative writers alike and is often anthologized. The short story is an intimate exploration of one woman’s experience with motherhood between the 1930 and 1950s. Her oldest daughter, Emily, is 19 years old and has been neglected and separated from the narrator due to factors... Read I Stand Here Ironing Summary
Père Goriot is a novel by French author Honoré de Balzac that was published in serial form between 1834 and 1835. The novel tells the story of three intertwined characters, Goriot, Vautrin, and Rastignac. The book is part of Balzac’s novel sequence, La Comédie humaine, and is one of the author’s most celebrated works, exploring themes of Wealth and Social Class in Restoration France, The Corruption of Parent-Child Relationships, and The Hypocrisy of 19th-Century French... Read Le Père Goriot Summary
Like Water for Chocolate is the debut novel of Laura Esquivel, published in Mexico in 1989 and then translated into English by Carol and Thomas Christensen. Esquivel has sold over four million copies of the novel worldwide. She is a novelist and active politician serving in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. She collaborated with her husband at the time to adapt the novel into a film in 1992, which was then nominated for a Golden... Read Like Water for Chocolate Summary
Gary D. Schmidt’s Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy (2004), an historical novel for young adults, received the Newbery Honor in 2005. It is based on actual events occurring on Malaga Island, Maine in 1912, when the government of Maine placed the residents of the island in a mental hospital and tore down their homes.Turner Buckminster is the son of a reverend living in Phippsburg, Maine in 1912. Turner has just relocated to Phippsburg from... Read Lizzie Bright And The Buckminster Boy Summary
Looking for JJ is a young adult thriller by Anne Cassidy about a British teen struggling to piece together her life despite a dark secret: As a child, she murdered another child. First published in 2004, the novel was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Book Award and won the Booktrust Teenage Prize. Narrated from the offender’s perspective, the novel explores themes of guilt, justice, and forgiveness. Seventeen-year-old Alice Tully lives with her foster... Read Looking for JJ Summary
The novel predominantly takes place in the slums of Montreal, Canada. Baby, the thirteen-year-old protagonist of the novel, lives with her heroin-addicted father, Jules. Her mother died when she was still a baby, leaving fifteen-year-old Jules to care for her on his own. His young age, addiction, and overall immaturity leads to an unstable and dangerous life for Baby. The novel is told from Baby’s adult point of view, and each section and subsequent chapters... Read Lullabies for Little Criminals Summary
Moon Over Manifest is a 2010 novel by author Claire Vanderpool. It relates the story of 12-year-old Abilene Tucker, a drifting girl in search of her father, a home, and a sense of belonging. When the novel starts, her father, Gideon Tucker, has just sent Abilene to the Kansas town of Manifest, claiming that he can’t take her to Iowa, where he is allegedly taking a railroad job. It is 1936, and the Great Depression... Read Moon Over Manifest Summary
Navigating Early (2013) is a novel by Clare Vanderpool. A coming-of-age book, it follows 13-year-old Jack Baker and his friend, Early Auden, who set off on a quest together to look for a great black bear, shaped by the story of the number pi. The book explores themes of grief and loss, empathy, and alternate perspectives.Clare Vanderpool is an award-winning American author who writes children’s books. Her novel, Moon Over Manifest (2010), won the John... Read Navigating Early Summary
Oedipus at Colonus is an ancient Athenian tragedy composed by Sophocles in (it is widely believed) the last year of his life, approximately 406 BC. His grandson, who was named Sophocles after him, first produced the play in 401 BC at the Festival of Dionysus, also known as the Great Dionysia. Along with Oedipus Rex and Antigone, it is one of three surviving tragedies by Sophocles, known as the Theban plays, that retell episodes from... Read Oedipus at Colonus Summary
On Beauty by the celebrated British author Zadie Smith was published in 2005. On Beauty was shortlisted for the prestigious Man Booker Prize and won the Orange Prize for Fiction. Smith is known for writing novels and essays that analyze the intersections of identity in the contemporary world with nuance, clarity, and empathy. She is also known to be influenced by the classic English author E.M. Forster. On Beauty is loosely based on Forster’s masterpiece... Read On Beauty Summary
One Crazy Summer, a Coretta Scott King Book Award winner and National Book Award nominee, is a historical novel for children that was published in 2009 by Rita Williams-Garcia. Other works by this author include P.S. Be Eleven, Like Sisters on the Homefront, and Clayton Byrd Goes Underground.This guide is based on the 2009 Amistad/HarperCollins Kindle edition. Set in 1968, the novel describes what happens when Delphine Gaither and her two younger sisters, Vonetta and... Read One Crazy Summer Summary
Ordinary People is the first novel written by Judith Guest and chronicles the life of an American family in the aftermath of two traumatic events. The book was first published in 1976 and was the recipient of the Janet Heidinger Kafka prize. It later inspired a film directed by Robert Redford and starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, and Timothy Hutton. Guest went on to write books like Second Heaven (1982), Killing Time... Read Ordinary People Summary
Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust is a historical middle-grade novel in verse first published in 1997. Through 110 first-person free verse poems, the narrative tells the story of two years in the life of Billie Jo Kelby, young daughter of a struggling farming family in the Oklahoma Panhandle in the mid-1930s. After a tragic accident results in the death of Billie Jo’s mother and baby brother, she and her father must find a way... Read Out of the Dust Summary
Out of the Easy, written by Ruta Sepetys and published in 2013, is a young adult historical fiction novel. Sepetys is an award-winning Lithuanian American writer of young adult historical fiction. Her honors include the Carnegie Medal, awarded to one work of children’s or young adult literature per year. Her novels are international best sellers and are widely translated. Out of the Easy is about Josie, a teenage girl living in the French Quarter of... Read Out of the Easy Summary
Peyton Place is a novel depicting sensational and melodramatic events in a small New England town in the 1930s and 1940s; it was written by American novelist Grace Metalious and published in 1956. Peyton Place provoked controversy due to its depiction of taboo topics including sexuality, sexual abuse, and abortion. Nonetheless, the novel sold extremely well, and it was also adapted into successful films and television series. Metalious explores themes such as Shame and Ambivalence... Read Peyton Place Summary
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IntroductionEmma Donoghue’s Room is a 2010 novel about a boy named Jack who lives in a single room with his mother, Ma. Room is a crime thriller novel that explores themes of trauma, innocence, and adaptability through the eyes of five-year-old narrator, Jack. Room has received many awards, including the ALA Alex Award, the Indies Choice Book Award for Fiction, and The New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year award. Room was... Read Room Summary
Originally printed in 1724, Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress was published anonymously and only later attributed to Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. The novel appears as if it is a biography, which was a common trope amongst 18th-century fiction as it was thought to appeal more to the public if readers believed the story was based on true events in a person’s life. The novel has an episodic quality to it and is not necessarily strung together by... Read Roxana Summary
“Rules of the Game” is a story in Amy Tan’s 1989 collection, The Joy Luck Club, which was adapted into a film by the same name. Tan was born in California to Chinese immigrant parents and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. She wrote the short story in response to an article she read about Chinese Americans playing chess.The story is told by Waverly Place Jong, the daughter of Chinese immigrants living in... Read Rules of the Game Summary
Rules Of The Road is a contemporary young adult novel by established author Joan Bauer, first published in 1998. It is the first book in the Rules of the Road series. The second book, Best Foot Forward, was published in 2005. Joan Bauer’s own complicated childhood with an alcohol-addicted father inspired Rules of the Road, which was met with critical acclaim. It won both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Golden Kite Award... Read Rules of the Road Summary
Secret Daughter (2010) is the debut novel of Canadian-Indian author Shilpi Somaya Gowda. Spanning twenty years, it follows two families who are mysteriously connected by an adopted daughter. A New York Times Bestseller, the novel has been translated into more than thirty languages and has sold more than a million copies. Godwa formed the idea for Secret Daughter while volunteering at an Indian orphanage as an undergraduate. Secret Daughter received much critical praise for its... Read Secret Daughter Summary
So Long, See You Tomorrow is the acclaimed final novel by American writer and editor William Maxwell. Originally published in two parts in New Yorker magazine in 1979, the book appeared the following year and received the prestigious National Book Award in 1982. Maxwell was the fiction editor of the New Yorker from 1936 to 1975, making him one of the most influential literary editors of the era. He worked closely with J. D. Salinger... Read So Long, See You Tomorrow Summary
Sons and Lovers is a 1913 novel by English author D. H. Lawrence. The novel explores the relationship between Gertrude Morel and her son Paul, who live in a small mining town in North England at the turn of the 20th century. Though met with a lukewarm response on release, Sons and Lovers has since been critically reappraised as one of Lawrence’s most important works and has been adapted for film and television. This guide... Read Sons and Lovers Summary
