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A Farewell to Arms
Frederic loves Catherine in Italy until desertion leads to Switzerland and stillbirth.
2,502-word summary · 11 min read
classics + historical fiction
12 books tagged both “classics” and “historical fiction”.
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Left alone on San Nicolas Island for eighteen years, Karana builds shelter, faces wild dogs, and finds company with Rontu.
2,559-word summary · 11 min read
The Name of the Rose
Friar William and Adso investigate 1327 abbey deaths amid library labyrinth.
2,580-word summary · 11 min read
The Three Musketeers
Young dArtagnan joins Athos, Porthos and Aramis to recover the queens diamonds and face Milady.
2,569-word summary · 11 min read
Things Fall Apart
Proud Igbo wrestler Okonkwo rises in 1890s Umuofia, then loses standing through hard exile, a son's conversion, and British missionaries and courts remaking…
2,518-word summary · 11 min read
War and Peace
Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei search for meaning amid the Napoleonic wars.
2,536-word summary · 11 min read
All Quiet on the Western Front
Paul Bäumer enlists at nineteen and faces the trenches of World War I in Remarque's 1929 classic, told from the German side of the wire.
2,543-word summary · 11 min read
Beloved
Sethe lives with the memory of killing her child to save her from slavery until a young woman named Beloved arrives.
2,586-word summary · 11 min read
The Red Tent
Dinah retells Genesis from the women's tent, loving Jacob's wives and surviving Shechem and Egypt.
2,014-word summary · 9 min read
Gone with the Wind
Scarlett O'Hara schemes through the Civil War and Reconstruction, from Tara to burning Atlanta, chasing Ashley while Rhett waits and watches.
2,049-word summary · 9 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
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak's The Book Thief retold: Liesel in Molching, Hans and Rosa, Max in the basement, and Death as narrator.
2,560-word summary · 11 min read