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Books become classics because they either reflect on or influence the world around us. As was the casewith Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Of...

Anyone who has ever bought anything from IKEA knows this to be true.

All Okonkwo was asking for was a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Granted, swinging your machete around may not be the nicest way to ask, but still. The guy d...

Entertainment that's also educational? We'll believe it when we read it, Shakespeare.

Why would Yehuda Amichai write an entire book on the diameter of a bomb and the diameter of its range? Is he trying to convey a message? Is his boo...

The main character of Speak doesn't speak. Watch this video to find out why.

In Maya Angelou's poem "Africa," she compares Africa's pain and struggles to a woman being brutalized. Why does she do this? Is it to draw sympathy...

This video discusses Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, set in a negative utopia in which women have no control over the government o...

We like having rights, and we like not being genetically engineered or altered. Check out this video on three dystopian works to see why you simply...

Meet Emma Woodhouse of Jane Austen's Emma. She’s a rich young woman with a good social life living in 18th-century England. We bet she has an aw...

Jane Austen wrote about fancy flirtations and picture-perfect proposals. We're guessing she wouldn't be a huge Fifty Shades of Grey fan. Publicly,...

Elizabeth thinks Darcy's a callous jerk; he thinks she’s a gold-digger. You know these two are just MFEO.

Would would the world be like without books? Ray Bradbury tackles that question—and many more— in Fahrenheit 451. Go ahead; read it on your Kin...

We may be into the whole online education thing, but we love our books more than anything. So the thought of someone burning them? Or of a life wit...

This video covers the plot of Jane Eyre, a novel by Charlotte Brontë. In it, Jane Eyre, an orphan-turned-governess with a miserable childhood fall...

When you're about to marry the love of your life, not many things could stop you. However, finding out that your future hubby is keeping his crazy...

Check out this video to find out why Wuthering Heights should never be considered #relationshipgoals.

Heathcliff may not be as much of a romantic hero as Mr. Darcy, but you'll fall in love with him all the same. If you tend to love self-serving and...

When you're about to marry the love of your life, not many things could stop you. However, finding out that your future hubby is keeping his crazy...

It can never hurt to have a few spare duchesses lying around the house.

Hanging your wife's portrait above your fireplace? Romantic. Hanging it up after you've killed her? Not so much.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be without the gift of sight? In "Cathedral," the narrator helps a blind man envision a cathedral by guidi...

What are the perks of being a wallflower? Shmoop amongst yourselves.

So what are the perks of being a wallflower? Seriously—we're asking.

In Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour," Louise Mallard has a rather peculiar response to the news of her husband's death: instead of mourning for...

Dig up your trench coat, grab your magnifying glass, and stick on that fake mustache (we know you have one): it's time to unleash your inner Sherlo...

This novel is all about finding yourself, which hopefully you can accomplish before you find yourself smack dab in the middle of an ocean without a...

Do we need creative arts to survive, or is logic enough? And how can The House on Mango Street help us decide? Check out this video to find out.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" is like one long drug trip. Don't try this at home.

Mariners back in the day sure knew how to bust a rime.

“Happy Hunger Games!” Or not. Katniss’s Hunger Games experiences left a not-so-happy effect on her. This video will prompt you to ponder if...

We volunteer you as tribute to watch this video analysis of Katniss in the second book of the Hunger Games series. After the berry suicide attempt...

It’s so upsetting when there's nothing good on TV. No celebrities dancing with trained professionals. No debonair bachelors handing out roses. No...

Everyone has that happy-go-lucky friend. The one who skips through life with a smile and believes everybody has a beautiful soul. We're guessing th...

What happens when Charles Marlow journeys up the Congo River? Who is Mr. Kurtz—is he really amazing or just a crazy weirdo? And what’s up with...

Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage about the Civil War not long after the war had ended. And get this: he didn't even fight in the war. W...

Meet Charles Darnay, the nobleman who spends more time on trial and in prison than attending balls and drinking expensive wine. Don't feel too bad...

It may be the best of times for Chuck Darnay, but it's pretty much constantly the worst of times for Sydney. Poor guy.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is about a young blacksmith boy (Pip) and his two dreams: becoming a gentleman and marrying the beautiful Est...

Crime and Punishment is all about a boy killing for money, literally, and then spending the rest of the book trying to hide it. Although the book c...

Why does Dr. Watson keep appearing in Sherlock Holmes's stories? Shmoop amongst yourselves.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold. In our opinion, however, it should be popped into the microwave for about 30-45 seconds.

"The Love Song of Shmoop" is next.

The Modernists thought the world had a lot of problems, and they were intent on fixing them—or at least talking about fixing them. Unfortunately,...

You’re one in a million, buddy. Er...actually, more like one meaningless speck in a sea of billions. Makes you feel kind of insignificant, right?...

It's called "Self-Reliance." What could it possibly be about?

What? She gets a rose and we don’t? Who is this Emily person anyway? What’s she done to deserve such a delightful, aromatic gift?

A family goes on a quest to bury their family member. Yeah, sounds simple...except it never is. ‘Cause mom’s dead, and people have issues which...

The Great Gatsby is set in and around New York City and Long Island. On the big L.I., there are two areas known as "West Egg" and "East Egg." East...

This video summarizes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby goes from a rich party guy in love with a married woman to dead. W...

Why was Jay Gatsby so great? Was it his ability to get away with bootlegging, his enduring love for Daisy, or his ability to throw epic parties tha...

She was just a girl who found herself in some unimaginably awful circumstances. If you feel like gaining some valuable perspective on the drama in...

Anne Frank thought of herself as a normal teenage girl, but the legacy she left through her diary was special and powerful.

Maybe it's just us, but we don't like to put off our dreams. After all, who knows? Tomorrow night, we might not want to have hands that are giant m...

Indecision may or may not be this man's biggest problem. All he can do is go left or right. It's not that big of a deal...or is it?

Shmoop the road less traveled by.

In Julie of the Wolves, a girl is thrown into the wild, far away from civilization. Find out how she fares by watching this video.

Are humans civilized, or are we just savages waiting to come out? William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies tackles that question.

Having a fancy title has always been on our to-do list, but somehow being Lord of the Flies doesn't sound all that glamorous.

Have you ever read a book and thought, "Whoa, this sounds like my life"? If you feel that way about The Fault in Our Stars, you're in for some majo...

This video summarizes the play A Raisin in the Sun. It discusses the Youngers, members of an African-American family trying to better themselves wh...

We know that snacking on some dry raisins in the beating hot sun doesn't sound like the most appetizing thing in the world. But stick with us and y...

Puritan adultery=big scarlet “A.” Puritan's know how to keep it simple. What’s not so simple? Hester Prynne’s adamant refusal to reveal who...

This video discusses the major ideas of the satirical American war novel Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. The horror of war meets…absurdity and humor?...

This video discusses the important ladies of The Sun Also Rises…make that the one important lady. Brett is the only major female character in the...

You might be hearing a chorus of farewells if you recommend A Farewell to Arms as the next read for your Fabulously Feisty Feminist Book Club.

The Old Man and the Sea was actually Hemingway's second title. His editor wouldn't let him use The Middle Aged Man and the Stubborn Fish.

Odysseus should have checked out How to Return Home from War for Dummies. Step One: Do not mess with the son of a god. Actually, no need to read on...

On his ten-year journey home from the Trojan War, Odysseus runs into everything from sirens to sea monsters to seductresses. Such is life when you...

Yes, there are kites. Yes, there are runners. No, despite how much we love running and flying kites, this isn't a happy story by any stretch of the...

Gee whiz! Running after kites sounds like so much fun! That's totally what this book is about, right? Nope. Hosseini's novel actually touches on su...

Imagine if dreams really could come true. This is the question that Langston Hughes ponders in his poem "Dream Deferred."

Modernism was the happy, optimistic bandwagon that every writer just had to jump on. Okay, so only half of that statement is true. But we want you...

Their eyes may have been watching God, but we think we know who won that staring contest.

Modernism was the happy, optimistic bandwagon that every writer just had to jump on. Okay, so only half of that statement is true. But we want you...

A great marriage begins with a blooming pear tree and ends with a hurricane, rabies, and a murder trial…or something like that.

Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...

This video summarizes the plot of Brave New World from the point of view of John (you know, the “savage”). It covers the escapism, social casts...

The Modernists thought the world had a lot of problems, and they were intent on fixing them—or at least talking about fixing them. Unfortunately,...

The title is pretty ironic when you consider how little sleep you'd be getting if you had a headless horseman chasing you.

Your favorite hip hop artist's bumpin' slang may be off the chain, but no one has left a mark on the English language quite like Shakespeare did. T...

Three words: The Hunger Games. Wait, one more word: "scapegoat." Wait—oh, just watch the video already.

Guy in a black leotard. In a cage. Not eating. Weird? Yes. Popular? Absolutely. Kafka's short story includes iconic artist-figures: a mouse singer...

We'd all like to think our families would accept us if we turned into giant bugs, but for Gregor Samsa, that was not quite the case.

Ode on a Californian Shmoop.

Who's really the crazy one in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? Shmoop amongst yourselves.

Think of this video as a how-to guide for not getting lobotomized. Practical? Maybe not. Entertaining? Um...

"Girl," by Jamaica Kincaid, is a poem—er, a story... er... what is this thing? Either way, it's about a mother's advice to her daughter. And noth...

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech has stood the test of time, and we think it always will.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was way more than a speech man.

Have you ever pretended to be super happy for your BFF when they win an award when, really, you just wanted to rip it out of their undeserving, ung...

Lisbeth Salander is a tough nut to crack. Hero? Villain? Somewhere in the middle? We're not sure, but we're hesitant to accuse her of anything...es...

Wouldn't it be nice to be rich, even if that wealth came at the cost of other things? If you answered yes, here's another question: what if that co...

Is Boo Radley the quintessential creep? Or, is he just isolated and misunderstood, hiding himself away to avoid people's judgment? You decide. He j...

In this video, Shmoop looks at all the ways that Scout has changed since those early days in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Breathe easy, Shmoopers. You don't have to be a time traveler to unravel the mysterious timeline of "Go Set a Watchman." We've got it covered....No...

A cheap shot at a bestseller or a deeper book with connections relevant to the human race? In The Call of the Wild, the protagonist is a dog named...

The Modernists thought the world had a lot of problems, and they were intent on fixing them—or at least talking about fixing them. Unfortunately,...

Under what circumstances should people be allowed to lie? Is Annemarie's situation dire enough? Shmoop amongst yourselves.

In The Giver, society is completely conformist. Neutrality rules the day, and no emotion is good emotion. Lois Lowry's novel challenges the value o...

Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...

What's the deal with "Nectar in a Sieve"? Shmoop amongst yourselves.

Life of Pi tells the story of a boy and a tiger trapped on a lifeboat for 227 days... or does it?

Sorry, guys: this novel doesn't follow the dramatic life events of pumpkin pie, nor does it explore what it truly means to be the mathematical cons...

Kaffir Boy is the story of a young South African tennis player living under the restrictions of apartheid. He ends up going the self-preservation r...

How would you feel if you lost a diamond necklace that you borrowed? We don't know your life, but we'd feel pretty crappy about it. In "The Necklac...

Robert Frost was a huge risk-taker. Instead of taking the more traveled path, he took the slightly overgrown one. Phew! Slow down, Rob; we can't ke...

Funny; we always feel like zombies after a weekend at Disneyland, too. Running from ride to ride from eight to midnight can really wear you down.

The book is as big as the whale.

Moby-Dick - una ballena extraña. Nuestro amigo capitán Ahab la había perseguido para años, pero no es el mejor lider en el mundo. Piensas que p...

What is the American Dream? Is it popularity? Or is it being content with what you have? In Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, the American...

The Salem Witch Trials in the 17th century. The Red Scare in the 1950s. Little to no evidence that witches/communists were anywhere close to taking...

The broken-hearted Abigail takes her revenge. You might never want to break-up with someone again after this video, so make sure the next person is...

One of the bestselling books of all time? Yes, please.

A dead man floats to shore. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke or a horror movie, but wait: it gets weirder. He's super tall, super good-looki...

It's so nice when a poem is straight with you right from the get-go, isn't it? If more poems were this considerate, "The Road Not Taken" might have...

Well, if this book doesn't make you want to tape over your laptop camera, we don't know what will.

By the end of this video, you will be brainwashed. There's nothing you can do about it; we just wanted to let you know. We like to think we're bigg...

How do you insult the Soviet Union and get away with it? Make them animals. (No one will ever know.) That was George Orwell's plan, and it worked....

The ultimate young-kid-lost-in-the-wilderness book. And yes, there are a lot of them.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, what site is the fairest of them all? What? IntelligenceHut.com? Are you sure? Ugh, we want a refund.

The concept of using a Facebook profile as a personal diary began with Sylvia Plath. Sorry, Martha, but we really don't need to know that you had o...

"The Telltale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe is the epitome of creepy. (We know we could say that about all of EAP's stories, but it's especially true f...

In Poe's raven's defense, he probably only knew that one word...

We know we say this for all of his stories, but here's Edgar Allan Poe at his creepiest. Well, if you don’t include that time you went into the b...

You are the chosen one...to watch this video, at least.

Modernism was meant to solve the world's problems, but some authors—Virginia Woolf and Ezra Pound, for example—had a few crises of their own.

The Modernists thought the world had a lot of problems, and they were intent on fixing them—or at least talking about fixing them. Unfortunately,...

Ayn (rhymes with "mine," ironically enough) Rand penned this cult classic over 50 years ago, but it still resonates with today's audiences. Our que...

This ain't your run-of-the-mill summer camp.

In this sequel, your favorite characters from Divergent make life-altering choices as they try to stick it to the man. It might sound like your ave...

Welcome to the first world problem pity parade. Strap in.

The Catcher in the Rye tells the story of Holden Caulfield’s Worst Weekend Ever, and this video tells the story of that story. From losing the fe...

There is certainly some deep meaning behind this guy's words. If he were ever to ask someone to borrow a cup of sugar, he was probably actually in...

You'd have to be a Grinch not to acknowledge what a huge effect Dr. Seuss had on all of us. Horton may have heard a Who, but hey... we heard it, t...

Dr. Seuss à la Shmoop. Here you will learn all about the Lorax, Horton, and the Cat in the Hat. And of course, we'll chat about Dr. Seuss. Or shou...

We're not sure if good ol' Shakespeare would endorse The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, but that's not going to stop us from hosting themed viewing...

Aren't midsummer night dreams the worst? You wake up all sweaty and gross, and for a minute there, you can't even remember where you are. And also,...

How's Julius Caesar doing after that whole "assassination" thing? Well, he's taking it one day at a time.

No HBO? Well then, how does a horror short story writing contest sound? And the winner is...drum roll, please...Mary Shelley. You go, girl. And tha...

This story goes as you might expect—a sprinkling of science, endless amounts of death and despair, and a whole lot of ugly monster. Oh joyous day!

GMOs. Now that’s a scary word. Or is it? Guess it’s time to ask ourselves: WWMST? ...For those of us who don’t constantly ask ourselves “wh...

Whenever you start regretting the choices you've made in your life, just review Oedipus' story, and you'll start feeling a heck of a lot better.

Did you hear the one about the guy who killed his dad and married his mom? Yeah, that’s not a joke, it’s Oedipus’ life. This video summarizes...

The Grapes of Wrath is one of the longest—ahem, most important books in American literary history. But what's with the title?

Así que ... si las uvas de la ira se perdió demasiado tiempo, iban a convertirse en pasas de uva de la ira? Si es así, esto podría afectar seri...

So... if grapes of wrath sat out too long, would they become raisins of wrath? If so, this could seriously affect the entire mood of our bran flake...

If you're still eating pie on a regular basis, you probably haven't read this book or seen the movie. If you have and it hasn't swayed you...well,...

Minny pulls quite a stunt in this story. Just try not to make a scene when Grandma Mimi won't tell you what her chocolate cream pie's "secret ingre...

What is Dracula really about? Just Count Dracula? Or is there more to it than vampires? This video addresses some major ideas in Bram Stoker’s cl...

Readers may be already be familiar with Dracula, but what about the mathematician and author, Bram Stoker? And yes, he graduated with a degree in m...

Vlad the Impaler was an appropriately named guy, until he went on tropical vacations. Then, he went by Vlad the Imtanner. For some facts that are a...

Could one of America’s most famous anti-slavery books be racist? Well, the book’s offensive caricatures combined with today’s perspective on...

And you thought a nymph was a naturally lovely woodland creature. To be fair, so did we. But boy did Jonathan Swift prove us wrong.

We were so moved by Angelina Jolie's overseas adoptions that we created a proposal to bring foreign-born children over by the thousands! Think abou...

Gulliver's Travels is a classic tale of adventure with a dash of what-the-heck-is-happening thrown in for good measure.

When you think about it, chess could be a metaphor for just about anything, really.

"Nothing cared I that time would take me": the famous words of Dylan Thomas in his poem "Fern Hill." In this poem, the speaker fights age and aims...

Can you really learn about human nature by removing yourself from the company of other humans? Henry David Thoreau thought it was a possibility and...

If you really want to let your hair down, Walden Pond is the place for you...unless you like that hair to be clean and full of volume, because ther...

We've always wanted to go rogue and live alone in the forest, but then we realized that conversing with trees and rocks could get pretty one-sided.

One video to rule them all. One video to find them. One video to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. Or something like that. The Lord of...

Should you ever find yourself on a raft, floating down the Mississippi River, you're going to want something to do. Reading Mark Twain's classic, T...

If you suddenly came into a bunch of money, you'd give it all away, right? Yeah, we figured.

Si alguna vez te encuentras en una balsa flotando en el río Mississippi, usted va a querer hacer algo. Lectura clásico de Mark Twain, Las aventur...

Three scantily clad young girls enter a store. No, this isn’t your grandfather about to tell an inappropriate joke. And no, you’re not watching...

Pious Aeneas goes from minor character in the Trojan War to founder of Rome, the city that conquered the world, meetin' ladies and experiencing maj...

Pious Aeneas strikes again. This time, with more destiny and hand-to-hand combat! (Of course, since we're talking about Aeneas, he's still harping...

We wish the Tralfamadorians were as fun as they sound. But unfortunately, they're your garden variety kidnap-humans-and-torture-them type of alien.

The Mahabha-what-now? Although you may not be as familiar with this epic text as you are with the Bible, it's just as famous in other parts of the...

In The Color Purple, Celie is abused by her father and husband. She leaves her father by marrying Mr. ________, and then leaves Mr. ______, too. Bu...

If you're looking for this one at the library, we suggest looking between The Color Red and The Color Blue.

You really must love a town if you're going to write a whole poem about it. Carl Sandburg wrote an entire poem on his hometown, Chicago, just becau...

This was Barack Obama’s original campaign slogan, but it didn’t test all that well with the voters.

In this memoir, Eliezer struggles with his relationship with his father during the Holocaust.

Don't come looking to these books for your Monday pick-me-up…unless a good cry really does a lot to lift your spirits. Seriously, we warned you.

Look, we get that you really like that one selfie with the makeup filter, but don't get this carried away about it, okay? Also, put your tongue bac...

Oscar Wilde was a beast when it came to wordplay. Oh, maybe that's why Shmoop loves him so much—we're pretty wilde, too.

They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...

Our Town is your town, Shmoopers.

Modernism was meant to solve the world's problems, but some authors—Virginia Woolf and Ezra Pound, for example—had a few crises of their own.

In Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, Death narrates the story of one girl who lived during the Holocaust. Not surprisingly, it's kind of a downer—bu...