BOOK REVIEW PLOT SUMMARY PLOT SUMMARY This modernist novel of manners by F. Scott Fitzgerald is published by Scribner Classics, a division of the MacMillan Reference Library (but is licensed to other publishers and is in the public domain, but only in countries outside...

London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet...

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin Not only is The Left Hand of Darkness a masterpiece of ideas, invention, and language, but it takes conventional assumptions about gender and grinds them into a fine, powdery dust. Published in 1969, the book...

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gala by Douglas Adams Parodying practically every well-worn sci-fi plot device in existence, Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has become a classic in its own right. A hapless hero with astonishing luck? Ill-tempered aliens...

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin It would be difficult to talk about James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room and not touch on the simple fact that this slim novel, published in 1956, is mainly a love story between two men. It seems impossible to think such a thing could be published...

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee One afternoon while talking with a friend about books, I wondered how to best describe my experience of reading Disgrace, and this is what I came up with: it's like a finely crafted, very sharp knife resting gently against your skin. The uneasiness...

2666 by Roberto Bolaño Completed in 2003 shortly before his death, 2666 is not only Roberto Bolaño's masterpiece but also one of the finest and most important novels of the 21st century. It's an entire world unto itself, one — not unlike our own — filled with horror, neglect,...