Paul Adams
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In 1925, the State of Tennessee enacted a law that prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools, specifically, that man came from apes. The law was immediately challenged by the ACLU and pitted two famous lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, a religious Fundamentalist and one-time presidential candidate, in a bruising contest. The case became famous, known as the Monkey Trial.
In this fictional trial, a high school teacher...
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Summary of Danielle Steel's Prodigal Son is the story of a man who loses everything that he considers important in his life only to discover how much more there is to happiness. His process of self-discovery includes reconciling with his long estranged twin brother, divorcing his wife, and then discovering a shocking secret that changes everything. The story has twists, turns, and revelations and the main character evolves along with the story.
Peter...
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Summary of Dorothea Benton Frank's All The Single Ladies is a novel by Dorothea Benton Frank that centers on three women brought together by the death of a friend, Kathryn Harper.
Lisa St. Clair is in dire straits. She lost all of her money in a failed yoga studio business and has been reduced to living in a home vacated by her parents' elderly friends. She is also estranged from her grown daughter, Marianne, who has chosen to live in Colorado to...
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Summary of Anne Tyler's A Spool of Blue Thread is the poignant story of four generations of the Whitshank family living in Baltimore. They are an ordinary family like any other, but they are also special in their own quirky ways. The members of the family love and care for each other, but they also harbor jealousies, rivalries, and carry secrets.
Red Whitshank runs the family business, Whitshank Construction. His wife, Abby, is a social worker, and...
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Summary of Toni Morrison's God Help the Child is a dramatic novel that focuses on how adults are affected by what happened to them when they were children. Bride, a successful, young, black woman, becomes who she is because her lighter-skinned mother had trouble accepting and loving her. Bride remakes herself in order to leave behind her past.
When Lula Ann Bridewell is born, her mother is ashamed of her because her skin is such a dark black. Lula...
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As society has experienced the recent deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner through media coverage, it has begun a dialogue regarding the treatment of young men of color and the attitude of law enforcement and lawmakers in regards to the safety and security of the urban black population. Between the World and Me is a letter Ta-Nehisi Coates writes to his teenage son, one that describes the tragedy and truth of the black experience...
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Summary of Debbie Macomber's Last One Home is a novel about persevering through tough times. It also shows how strong the bond between sisters can be.
Sisters Karen, Cassie, and Nichole have a happy childhood. They play hide-and-seek and other games with the children in the neighborhood. This changes when Cassie, at the age of eighteen, goes against the advice of her family and marries Duke Carter. She leaves her family after a terrible argument with...
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Summary of J.D. Robb's Obsession in Death is a murder mystery by J.D. Robb that features homicide detective, Lieutenant Eve Dallas. This is the fortieth book in this futuristic crime series.
Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called to the scene of a murder. Leanore Bastwick, a defense attorney, is the murder victim. A message to Dallas is written on the wall at the murder scene claiming it was done for Dallas and that justice has been served.
Dallas and her...
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Love is not the same for all people, neither is passion, sex, or intimacy. Sometimes what one person finds thrilling, another can only hope to understand. These are the lessons learned from the experiences of Anastasia Steele after meeting Christian Grey in the now famous Fifty Shades of Grey series. In this book, the motivations, thoughts, and introspections of the man who introduced Ana to the world of bondage and discipline, Christian Grey, are...
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Summary of Ian Caldwell's The Fifth Gospel is a literary thriller that takes place in 2004 at the Vatican, the chief residence of the Catholic Pope in Italy. The novel follows the aftermath of Vatican museum curator, Ugolino Nogara's, murder.
Brothers, Alex and Simon Andreou, are both priests. Alex is a Greek Orthodox priest and Simon is a Roman Catholic priest as well as Vatican diplomat in the Secretariat. Their opposing religious affiliations place...
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Summary of Sejal Badani's Trail of Broken Wings is a novel by Sejal Badani. The novel follows the story of a family who immigrated to California from India, focusing mainly on three sisters who suffered incredible abuse at the hands of their father, Brent. When Sonya, the youngest, arrives home shortly after her father falls into a coma, the three women and their mother are forced to confront the abuse and the ways in which it altered their lives.
Upon...
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Summary of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is a classic science fiction novel named for the temperature at which paper combusts. The story is set in a futuristic United States, run by an authoritarian government, where nearly everyone's attention is preoccupied by mindless television and radio programs...
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Summary of Susan Meissner's Secrets of a Charmed Life is the story of how two young sisters survived World War II in London.
In 2015, at Stow-on-the-Wold in the English countryside, Kendra Van Zant, a history major, interviews ninety-three year old Isabel MacFarland. Kendra quickly realizes Isabel is not her subject's real name, nor is she ninety-three. Isabel, a well-known artist, tells Kendra the tale of two young girls living in London just before...
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Summary of Emily Bleeker's Wreckage, a plane crash shatters the lives of two families, raising complex issues of love, loyalty and loss, in Wreckage, the debut novel by Emily Bleeker.
Lillian Linden takes a much-needed vacation to Fiji with her mother-in-law, Margaret, who won the trip in a contest sponsored by Carlton Yogurt. Lillian has two young sons and a busy life in Missouri, so she relishes the break. However, Margaret can often be overbearing....
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Summary of Lisa Gardner's Crash & Burn is a psychological thriller that tells the story of Nicky Frank, a woman who cannot escape the memories that reside inside her head. After suffering two previous concussions, Nicky has problems with night terrors, migraine headaches, and haunting memories from the past. These become worse when she suffers a third brain injury in a car accident.
Nicky Frank's car crashes into a ravine in rural New Hampshire. She...
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Summary of John Green's Paper Towns is a coming of age story set in Orlando, Florida. It focuses on Quentin, a young man about to embark on his adult life, and the adventure he and his friends, Ben and Radar, have their senior year that centers on the disappearance of their classmate Margo Roth Spiegelman. Quentin lived next door to Margo his entire life and has a crush on her. He calls living so close to her a miracle and basks in the glory that...
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Summary of Nick Hornby's Funny Girl is a novel by writer Nick Hornby set in Blackpool, England in 1964. It tells the story of twenty-one year old Barbara Parker, a beautiful blonde, who wants to become a comedic actress like Lucille Ball.
Barbara wins the Miss Blackpool beauty pageant. Barbara wants more than anything to get out of Blackpool. When she realizes the title of Miss Blackpool commits her to a year of hospital visits and charity events,...
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Summary of Heidi Murkoff & Sharon Mazel's What to Expect When You're Expecting a best selling, step-by-step guide to pregnancy, covering everything from before a woman starts trying to conceive to six weeks after the birth. Over the course of that time, a woman's body undergoes numerous changes, as does her personality and her relationships with her partner, doctors, and colleagues…