A dystopian novel between loyalty and betrayal, publicity and privacy. When Mae is offered to work at The Circle, an influential tech company, she could not be happier. It is only when she realizes the company’s desire to permeate ever more fields of their customers’ lives that Mae starts to wonder where the use of […]
This story about loss and release came second in the Costa Short Story Awards 2019: The reader follows a father and his son on a hike along a mountainous path. What starts as a nice enough pastime quickly makes a turn for the worse…
The young wizard Harry broadens his knowledge and skills in the second volume of the Harry Potter series. Together with his friends Ron and Hermine, he critically investigates Hogwart’s history and the continuing conflict between students from Gryffindor and Slytherin – in which identity seems to play a major role.
A modern tragedy negotiating reality and illusion within the pursuit of the American Dream. Willy Loman is a travelling salesman who lives with his wife, Linda, in New York. Besides being constantly stressed out by his job, driving around and earning barely enough money to make a living, he is also disappointed by his son […]
A teenage novel about friendship, love and the importance of overcoming loss, grief and suffering. After moving to a boarding school in Alabama, Miles manages to make new friends, discovers the vices of teenage life and falls in love with Alaska – a girl seemingly carrying some emotional trauma. One day Alaska receives a phone […]
This classic tale is based on a true story featuring the loyal and faithful dog Bobby: Over a hundred years ago in Edinburgh, the little Bobby would return for fourteen years, day by day, to his master’s graveside. His story is retold from the perspective of Tom and Becky, two children who are on a […]
A coming-of-age novel about emotional distance and proximity, friendship and family, responsibility and peer-pressure. 12-year old Marcus lives alone with his mother, who suffers from depression. Will is a 36-year old bachelor, living off his father’s fortune and rejecting any responsibilities. When Will attends a single parents support group, simply in order to pick up […]
The speaker of the poem follows an engineer walking home from their night shift. Most of the scenery remains in the dark except of the engineer and his lamp – traveling alone, while “the rails sing quietly […] till he comes home.” Helen Mort’s second collection of poetry “No Map Could Show Them” offers the […]
A prototypical poem of British Romanticism drawing upon the city-country-dichotomy. In Wordsworth’s famous poem, the speaker describes encountering a field of daffodils beside a lake. The overwhelming image of the dancing flowers will remain and spend “bliss and solitude” whenever the speaker feels “vacant” or in “pensive mood”.
A teenage-detective novel on high school culture, identity conflicts, bullying and peer pressure. Hannah has committed suicide. Shortly after, her classmate Clay receives a package with a set of audio tapes. While Clay works his way through the tapes, the reasons for what happened to Hannah are revealed and he begins to see life at […]
This young adult fiction is the debut novel from the magical realist Harry Potter series. Harry is an orphan, living with his aunt and uncle and their son Dudley. He finds out that he is no ordinary boy at all, when on his 11th birthday he receives an invitation to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft […]
The Mr. Men and Little Miss series introduces different title characters and their dominant character traits to convey a simple moral lesson. Together the characters experience adventures – e.g. in London, where they are on a busy tour through the city exploring its sights, including Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and the Tower of London.
A modernist short story adressing alienation, confrontation and illusion that follows Miss Brill, who works as an English teacher in France. Every Sunday she visits the public gardens to sit on a bench observing her surroundings. She imagines the whole scenery as a theatre play in which everybody – including herself – has a particular […]