by Banana Yoshimoto In true Yoshimoto style, the book contains three stories by the author, all unified by the same common denominator: Sleep. "Deep Sleep," "Night Travelers," and "An Experience" are the three story titles. The first, which also gives the book its title, is simply perfect and encompasses themes dear to the author that we find in almost all her works: these are the themes of the paranormal, death, and the rebirth of her protagonists. In this first story, Terako, the main protagonist, manages to reconcile with herself and find the desire, or rather the right strength, to surrender to love—a somewhat restrained and unique lo...

by Agatha Christie This novel by the queen of mystery falls somewhere between a detective story and a spy story! Agatha Christie takes us to an English village in the spring of 1940; the protagonists of the novel are a mature married couple, former "secret agents" of the British government. Tommy and Tuppence Beresford are their names. The two now live confined to their home, while their grown children work far away from their parents. For this reason, the couple finds it very sad and depressing no longer to find work that fills their days. Until one day Tommy receives a visit from a certain Grant, who offers him a secret assignment, a ne...

by Mary Shelley Author Mary Shelley (born Wollstonecraft) was born in London on August 30, 1797, to Mary Wollstonecraft, a women's rights activist, and William Godwin, a philosopher and novelist. At just sixteen, Mary met the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, whom she married in 1816 following the death of Shelley's first wife. Their marital life was brief and marked by severe grief: only one of their four children survived childhood, and Shelley died drowned during a storm in 1822. It was her husband who insisted that Mary cultivate her writing talent. Frankenstein was published in 1818 and, after her husband's disa...

AUTHOR Christie, Agatha (Torquay, Devonshire 1891 - Wallingford, Oxford 1976), a British writer of detective novels, known for well-crafted plots full of surprises and featuring two original detective characters, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. After an unsuccessful first marriage, Agatha Christie married a well-known English archaeologist and frequently joined him on expeditions in Iraq and Syria, experiences she drew upon to create the settings and atmospheres of some of her novels, such as Appointment with Death (1930) and Murder in Mesopotamia . Poirot is particularly the hero of most of her works, from her first novel The Mysterious...

By Primo Levi AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Primo Levi was born in 1919 in Turin and was deported to Auschwitz during World War II. Director of a resin factory and a self-described "militant chemist," he became a writer after the nightmare of the concentration camps, not for the pleasure of revenge but to reaffirm the possibility of a reasonable use of a man's life. His books, fiercely commemorative, are nevertheless marked by a tenacious love for life, a subtle irony, a sort of joy for this life that can finally be lived again. In 1947, he published his first book, If This Is a Man , which recounts the events of his deportation to Germany and his...

by Jules Verne Literary Genre Adventure Novel. Plot Year 1872, Wednesday, October 2: Mr. Phileas Fogg, one of the most unique and well-known members of the Reform Club in London, was patiently awaiting the arrival of his new servant. At 11:30, the new servant named Passepartout arrived; after introductions and delegating tasks, Fogg went to the Reform Club. Inside the building, he met other members who were discussing a robbery at the Bank of London, concerned about how quickly the thief could cover his tracks with increasingly efficient modes of transportation that could circumnavigate the globe in 100 days. Mr. Fogg immediately correcte...

by Stephen King Plot Little Tall Island, 1989. It’s an island in Maine with just over two hundred inhabitants, seemingly ordinary but harboring dark secrets deep within their souls that they are determined to keep forever. The residents are facing difficult times, especially with the news of the impending "storm of the century," the most powerful and disastrous natural calamity in the last fifty years. Offering them comfort is Mike Anderson, the island’s sheriff and owner of the local supermarket where residents buy supplies to weather the storm. The day before the storm hits, André Linoge mysteriously appears on the island, an eerie figu...

by Robert Louis Stevenson The Author Robert Louis Stevenson was a Scottish writer known for novels and stories, many of which have become classics of children's literature. He was born in Edinburgh in 1850. Raised in a bourgeois environment, his father unsuccessfully pushed him to study engineering and law. Suffering from a chronic respiratory ailment (tuberculosis), Stevenson spent much of his life abroad, hoping to benefit from a more favorable climate. His early writings were travelogues. One significant journey was by ship and train to California (1879-80); a pleasure cruise in the Pacific inspired In the South Seas (1884). In 188...

by Matteo Rimoldi Plot Research laboratory. Specimen 698 escapes from its cage. Dr. Parker issues an urgent order to capture it as soon as possible, because it is very, very dangerous... Part One: THE DOG New York, present day. Christopher Daniels, known as Chris to his friends, is about to take the “big leap”: he is finally going to ask his girlfriend, Vera Reeve, to marry him. Chris walks down the avenue leading to his girlfriend's house, and everything seems perfect. He feels calm, with a ring for Vera in his jacket pocket, but... something suddenly appears: it looks like a dog, a very large one. Chris, who isn’t afraid of dogs, pe...

by Thomas Harris The Plot In this novel, Thomas Harris once again takes us deep into the mind of a dark criminal. Seven years have passed since Dr. Hannibal Lecter escaped, seven years since FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling encountered him at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Dr. Lecter is still free, free to indulge in his well-known interests. But Starling has never forgotten their meetings, nor the metallic voice of Lecter, which she still remembers all too well. Mason Verger, Lecter’s sixth victim, has also not forgotten. For too many years, he has lived attached to a machine that helps him breathe, isolated in...

by Heinz G. Konsalik The Plot In the spring of 1944, the end of Germany is imminent. On the Eastern Front, the Red Army prepares the offensive that will take them to Berlin. Some officers of the Wehrmacht High Command believe that not all is lost and call back from the front ten men destined to change the course of history. The ten arrive from the front lines: Peter Radek, Berno von Ranowski, Elmar Solbreit, Baron Venno von Baldenow, Johann Poltmann, Detlev Adler, Asgard Kuehenberg, Dietrich Semper, Bodo von Labitz, Alexander Dalburg. They come from all over the German domains but share the knowledge of the language and coexistence with t...

THE PLOT The first two texts of the book serve as an introduction: in the first, the editor provides the reader with some details about the life of the Author, who in the book is called Gulliver, not Swift (this is due to the fact that at the time the story was written, censorship was in effect and since the book contains many criticisms of modern society, politics, and religion, the Author decided to publish the book under a pseudonym), and an explanation of the omission of certain parts, such as overly detailed descriptions. The second text is a letter sent by Gulliver to the editor, his cousin Sympson, in which the Author expresses an...

by J. R. R. TOLKIEN At the end of the book, there is a table (b/w) illustrating the lands that are the subject of the narrative. The book is divided into 3 major parts: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Brief biography of the author Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel (Bloemfontein, South Africa, 1892 - Bournemouth, Hampshire, 1973), British philologist and writer. Professor of English at the University of Oxford from 1945 to 1959, he wrote philological works and significant treatises on ancient and medieval English literature. His scholarship in this field is evident in the narratives inspired by medieval...