Title: Rebecca

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Published: 1938

Summary: The story concerns a woman who marries an English nobleman and returns with him to Manderley, his country estate. There, she finds herself haunted by reminders of his first wife, Rebecca, who died in a boating accident less than a year earlier. In this case, the haunting is psychological, not physical: Rebecca does not appear as a ghost, but her spirit affects nearly everything that takes place at Manderley. The narrator, whose name is never divulged, is left with a growing sense of distrust toward those who loved Rebecca, wondering just how much they resent her for taking Rebecca’s place. In the final chapters, the book turns into a detective story, as the principal characters try to reveal or conceal what really happened on the night Rebecca died.

Rating: 8.5/10

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Title: Nineteen Minutes

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Author: Jodi Picoult

Summary: In Sterling, New Hampshire, 17-year-old high school student Peter Houghton has endured years of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of classmates. His best friend, Josie Cormier, succumbed to peer pressure and now hangs out with the popular crowd that often instigates the harassment. One final incident of bullying sends Peter over the edge and leads him to commit an act of violence that forever changes the lives of Sterling’s residents. Even those who were not inside the school that morning find their lives in an upheaval, including Alex Cormier. The superior court judge assigned to the Houghton case, Alex—whose daughter, Josie, witnessed the events that unfolded—must decide whether or not to step down. She’s torn between presiding over the biggest case of her career and knowing that doing so will cause an even wider chasm in her relationship with her emotionally fragile daughter. Josie, meanwhile, claims she can’t remember what happened in the last fatal minutes of Peter’s rampage. Or can she? And Peter’s parents, Lacy and Lewis Houghton, ceaselessly examine the past to see what they might have said or done to compel their son to such extremes.

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Title: Anna Karenina

Author: Leo Tolstoy

Published in: 1877

Summary: Anna Karenina has two plots that run side by side throughout the novel: the story of Anna and the story of Levin. Levin’s story is an expression of Tolstoy’s pastoral nature and a reaffirmation of the novelist’s vision of the simple life. The beauty of the seasons and the pragmatic work of harvesting absorb Levin. Levin’s relationship to the land and life is contrasted with Anna’s enigmatic and destructive passions. Anna’s appearance in the novel represents a rift in the tranquil world which allows physical passion and irrationality to prevail.

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