On the Road
Sal Paradise rides with Dean Moriarty across America chasing work, jazz, and meaning.
2,792-word summary · 12 min read
Tag: american literature
9 books with this tag.
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Often combined with: classics (8) · coming of age (4)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Francie Nolan grows up poor in 1910s Williamsburg, reading on fire escapes while her family scrapes by, and learns how schooling can lift her out.
2,485-word summary · 11 min read
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck Finn fakes his death, floats the Mississippi with the runaway Jim, and tears up the letter that would betray him. Twain's river classic, its cons and…
2,605-word summary · 12 min read
Slaughterhouse-Five
Billy Pilgrim slips through time from Dresden to Tralfamadore in Vonnegut's short antiwar classic.
2,722-word summary · 12 min read
Of Mice and Men
Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men retold: George and Lennie on a California ranch, the dream farm, and why mercy ends it.
2,237-word summary · 10 min read
Little Women
Alcott's Little Women retold: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March through the Civil War years and beyond.
2,487-word summary · 11 min read
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby through Nick Carraway: Gatsby's parties, the green light, Daisy and Tom, and why Fitzgerald's 1925 novel ends as a judgment on the American…
2,501-word summary · 11 min read
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
Harold Bloom's criticism volume on To Kill a Mockingbird: its essays on censorship, race, regionalism, and Atticus Finch, and how scholars have read Harper…
2,427-word summary · 11 min read
To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mockingbird through the eyes of Scout Finch: Maycomb's slow days, Atticus's defense of Tom Robinson, the Boo Radley mystery, and what Lee's 1960…
2,308-word summary · 10 min read