This novel combines a beautiful and unique love story with the terrifying reality of war and seeking refuge. When Nadia and Saeed meet, their country is on the brink of a civil war. As violence and unrest increases, they decide they need to leave their home and jump into uncertainty. Jump being meant quite literally, […]

This award-winning graphic novel tells, or rather shows, the autobiographical coming-of-age story of Craig Thompson. Raised in rural isolation, Craig and his younger brother Phil are both depicted as devout Christians with a knack for art. Through his teen years, however, Craig finds it hard to fit in with his peers and suffers a lot […]

A crime story dealing with powerlessness, alienation, and insanity. A young woman returns to her hometown to look for her father, who has disappeared. She, her lover, and her best friend go to her father’s island, where she follows some clues and concludes that her father has gone mad but must still be alive. Over […]

This Postmodern utopian/dystopian novel is about artificial intelligence, religion, genetic engineering, and coping with death and guilt.Klara is an Artificial Friend sold to the sickly girl to help her cope with the loneliness and help with her daily challenges. Klara narrates the story and has a remarkable observational capability particularly noticing the little things. Because […]

The dystopian sequel of The Handmaid’s Tale explores the experiences of three more characters regarding Gilead and its regime. It includes the accounts of Aunt Lydia and the two daughters of the narrating handmaid of the first book. It explains the views of someone who happened to be witness to the government takeover and is […]

This movie adaptation of the musical “Hair” focuses on the American 1960s counterculture movement. The story follows Claude, a Vietnam War draftee, and his encounters with a group of hippies. They introduce him to their lifestyle of drugs and peace rallies, but Claude struggles with his political views that don’t align with his new friends’. […]

“Zombie” by the Irish band The Cranberries problematises the violent troubles in Northern Ireland. The protest song was composed after two kids were killed and dozens of people injured in a bomb attack in Warrington city on March 20, 1993. Written in memory of the young victims and the mental trauma caused by the conflict, […]

The song “Hunger” by the English indie rock band Florence + the Machine contemplates a relation between eating disorders and youthful loneliness. The singer Florence Welch has stated in interviews that this lead single from the album High As Hope originally started out as an autobiographical poem but morphed into this song throughout the years. […]

This Gothic short story contrasts inner and outer monstrosity, and, going along with that, also focuses on moral values and the view on what is different. The young student Giovanni moves into an apartment in Padua, with windows that are opening to a beautiful garden. Said garden seems to consist of poisonous flowers and is […]

Though written in the Romantic period, this novel is considered the first supernatural English novel. It combines Shakespearean elements like the class-dependent distribution of comedy and tragedy and ghostly apparitions with medievalism and 18th-century realism. Manfred is the lord of the castle of Otranto, and his son Conrad is about to marry Isabella. When Conrad […]

The Canterbury Tales are a medieval collection of 24 different short stories written in verse and prose. Frame action is a storytelling contest between a couple of pilgrims on their way from London to Canterbury. The characters such as the Knight, the Nun, the Cook, the Pardoner and the Wife of Bath represent different estates […]

“Article 5: Children are considered valid citizens when conceived by a married man and wife. All other children are to be removed from the home and subjected to rehabilitative procedures.“ In this dystopian world, the Bill of Rights has been replaced by the Moral Statutes after a war rampaged through the United States. Children out […]

This novel explores the history of sexual abuse in connection to the catholic church that was uncovered in Ireland. Odran Yates has dedicated his life to priesthood and the church. His devotion is challenged however, when revelations about child abuse emerge that destroy the church’s public image. And although he is at first reluctant to […]

This coming-of-age autobiography by award-winning author Maya Angelou features a memoir of racism, trauma, identity and hope. The title refers to the first line of the third stanza of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy” (1899), which reflected the perspective of a caged bird’s longing for freedom and its wish to escape its prison. As Dunbar’s […]

Here, four of Shakespeare’s most famous plays are rewritten for a younger audience: Twelfth Night, Macbeth, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They are shorter and told from the perspective of the side characters Malvolio, Banquo, Caliban, and Peaseblossom. I, Shakespeare might be useful if you want to avoid reading the longer originals but […]

This classic adventure novel focusing on the relationship between man and nature, religion and free will explores the limits of knowledge and sanity. The story is told from the perspective of Ishmael, a poor young fellow from New York, who takes up a job on a whaler boat. His captain, called Ahab, is obsessed with […]

This drama is a fictional depiction of the night leading up to Martin Luther King’s assassination. After King’s speech I’ve Been to the Mountaintop in Memphis, he returns to his hotel, the Lorraine Motel. There, he encounters a maid called Camae. And although initially flirtatious, she soon reveals her true intentions. Sent down to earth […]

A poem from the Romantic period that explores the effects of industrialisation, social injustice, poverty and responsibility. It portrays London in 1794 through the eyes of the speaker, who walks the streets and describes the sight: crying chimney-sweepers, governmental oppression and the restriction of freedom. The poem, which is in the public domain, is useful […]