A Corner of the Universe is a novel published in 2002 by Ann M Martin. The novel takes place in the summer of 1960, centering on the 11-year-old narrator's life. Living with her father and mother in Millerton, Pennsylvania, Hattie Owen helps her mother run a boarding house. However, after Hattie's Uncle Adam comes to visit, Hattie's summer plans are derailed, leading to tragedy. The novel deals with themes of family, human understanding and empathy.
A View From the Bridge is the story of Eddie Carbone, an Italian-American dockworker living in Red Hook, New York. Eddie lives with his wife and their niece, Catherine, and also hosts several of his wife's cousins who are illegal immigrants from Italy. Eddie becomes obsessed with Catherine and his fixation begins a series of events that leads to his betrayal of the Italian immigrant community and his death at the hands of his wife's cousin, Marco.
The Flies is a play by French Existentialist philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, retelling the Greek myth of Orestes and Electra with added themes of human freedom, guilt and the imposition of societal values. Electra and Orestes' mother Clytemnestra murdered their father, Agamemnon, and married Aegisthus. When Orestes arrives, the siblings kill their mother and flee to the temple of Apollo, where they are haunted by the Furies and the Gods. Electra repents to Zuess, but Orestes refuses to, claims human autonomy, forgives the townspeople and exiles himself with the Furies.
A Study in Scarlet is the story of consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and his associate Dr. John Watson, his eventual biographer, as they attempt to solve the mystery of a strange man who poisons victims seemingly at random. Holmes theorizes that the man is conducting a study in scarlet, a treatise of killing and violence as contrasted with the blandness of everyday life in England during the stodginess of the Victorian era.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is the story of the title character, a 15-year-old girl attending a private and very prestigious boarding school. Frankie uses her considerable intellect to confront the chauvinist attitudes of the staff and students, manipulating a secret society of upperclassmen to do her bidding. Frankie's pranks, schemes, and attempted lesson-teaching soon escapes her control, though, and she is forced to master her passions in order to restore order.
After killing off his hero in The Adventure of the Final Problem, Conan Doyle brings him back to life in the short story collection The Return of Sherlock Holmes. In the first story, Holmes reunites with Watson to bring down Colonel Moran, so that Holmes can resume his life in London. The stories in the collection focus on the use of logic and science to solve crimes and on Sherlock Holme's growing fame and popularity, which he feels uncomfortable with.