School Book List Titles

... Read The Marble Faun Summary

The Master and Margarita is a novel by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. The novel was written over the course of 12 years but due to the content being deemed controversial by the Soviet Union it was not published until 1966, which was more than two decades after Bulgakov’s death. The novel uses themes, ideas, and imagery from Christianity and the supernatural as well as dark comedy to subtly critique the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin... Read The Master and Margarita Summary

The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character (1886) is a novel by Thomas Hardy. Taking place in a fictional town in rural England sometime in the 1840s, the story follows young hay trusser Michael Henchard as he traverses English social life and struggles to improve his standing. One of the foremost authors of the Victorian period, Hardy is known for his psychologically and morally complex portrayals of rural English... Read The Mayor of Casterbridge Summary

The Midwife’s Apprentice was written by Karen Cushman and published in 1991 by Houghton Mifflin. A young adult historical fiction novel set in medieval England, the story follows a young unhoused girl with no ambitions or sense of belonging as she experiences kindness and learns to have confidence in herself and find her place in the world through midwifery. The book won the John Newbery Medal in 1996, an honor also given to Cushman’s 1995... Read The Midwife's Apprentice Summary

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... Read The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl Summary

The Miser, by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (better known by his stage name, Molière) was written in 1668 and was first performed at the theatre of the Palais-Royal in Paris on September 9th, 1668. The five-act play, which takes much of its inspiration from Plautus’ Latin comedy Aulularia (or The Pot of Gold), is a comedy centered on a penny-pinching old miser, Harpagon, who schemes to make more money by arranging marriages for himself and his two... Read The Miser Summary

The Moonstone is a Victorian mystery novel by the English writer Wilkie Collins. It was originally published in serial installments between January and August 1868. The Moonstone is sometimes considered one of the first detective novels in English, with its suspenseful and dramatic plot building on the success Collins had achieved with an earlier mystery novel, The Woman in White (1860). Throughout The Moonstone, Collins explores the themes of Public Reputation Versus Inner Nature, The... Read The Moonstone Summary

The Mosquito Coast, published in 1981 by Paul Theroux, is an adventure story narrated by 13-year-old Charlie Fox, the son of a brilliant inventor who uproots his family to establish a self-sustaining settlement in the jungles of Honduras. Writing in the tradition of novels like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Robinson Crusoe, The Swiss Family Robinson, and Lord of the Flies, Theroux cited the Jonestown Massacre and the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith as influences in... Read The Mosquito Coast Summary

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The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel written by English novelist Charles Dickens. Dickens completed about half of the novel before he died in June 1870, and he had already begun publishing the novel in serial form. Because the novel revolves around the mysterious disappearance, and possible murder, of the titular character, many individuals have speculated about how Dickens would have resolved the mystery had he completed the text. In the existing portion... Read The Mystery of Edwin Drood Summary

The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838) is Edgar Allan Poe’s only complete novel. The first two installments were published in 1837 in the Southern Literary Messenger magazine, where Poe was an editor. After leaving the Messenger, he continued working on the novel intermittently until it was published as a complete text in 1838. It brings together various literary genres—including the adventure story, coming-of-age narrative, and scientific guidebook— and infuses them with an... Read The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket Summary

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In The Old Man and the Sea, a 1952 adventure novella by American author Ernest Hemingway, an aging fisherman pits his life and wits against a giant fish as he battles to catch it and then protect its flesh from ravenous sharks. With its themes of endurance, perseverance, and respect for one’s opponent, this simple, straightforward narrative is widely regarded as an American classic and one of the greatest sea stories ever told.The book helped... Read The Old Man and the Sea Summary

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... Read Theories of Time and Space Summary