INDEX OF SUMMARIES

Go straight to the Summaries List
See also the Mystery Series Lists!
What to Read Next!

I offer Detailed Summaries and Short Summaries of best-sellers and prize-winners.  The Detailed Summaries go chapter-by-chapter and have plot spoilers throughout.  The Short Summaries have plot spoilers in a shaded box at the bottom of the page so that those who don't want them can easily avoid them.

Why would readers want plot spoilers? To decide whether to read or recommend the book.  To find out what happens if they couldn't finish the book.  To fill in the gaps in the overall story if they are between books in a series. To familiarize themselves with an author's body of work.
What books do I pick to summarize? Anything recent and popular. Classics are already well-covered; summarizing anything too obscure might harm an author's sales.

Short Summaries offer information in the following format:

Book Title by Author
Buy at Amazon: a link to the Amazon.com product page
Description: one sentence about the plot, no plot spoilers
Objectionable Material: profanity, sex, or violence? No plot spoilers
Review: Brief with no plot spoilers
Theme: One sentence, no plot spoilers
Title: Origin of title, no plot spoilers
Viewpoint: most books are told from first-person or third-person
Links: to things of interest within this website
Plot Summary with Spoilers: This is in a purple box at the bottom of the page. You can avoid it if you don't like spoilers.

Summaries List - alphabetical by title
Please check back in the future as more get added.

Atonement by Ian McEwan.  Detailed Summary (not yet completed)
In 1935 Britain, a young girl's false accusation ruins lives.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Detailed Summary, Short Summary
An obese Dominican-American science-fiction nerd risks all for love. Pulitzer Prize.

The Gathering by Anne Enright - short summary.  Booker Prize

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. Detailed Summary
In 1950s London, a woman writer struggles with the disintegration of self.

Gone Baby Gone by Dennis Lehane. Detailed Summary
Two private investigators search the underbelly of Boston for a missing child.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.  Detailed Summary
Two sisters experience the 1960s civil war in Nigeria. Orange Prize

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Detailed Summary, Short Summary
A man returns to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, seeking redemption.

March by Geraldine Brooks.  Detailed Summary
The absent father from Little Women fights for the North in the American Civil War. Pulitzer Prize.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Short Summary
A man born a hermaphrodite and raised as a girl looks back on his life and the life of his Greek-American grandparents and parents to put his strange story into perspective. Pultizer Prize.

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. Detailed Summary
A hunter steals money from a drug deal, and tries to stay ahead of an assassin.

Sister Mine by Tawni O'Dell - short summary

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Detailed Summary
The unbreakable friendship of two women helps them endure a hard life in Afghanistan.

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson. Detailed Summary (not yet completed)
Soldiers and CIA operatives struggle through the long years of the Vietnam War.  National Book Award.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon.  Detailed Summary (not yet completed)
A cop investigates a murder in alternate-history Alaska, now the homeland of the Jews.

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