I probably would never have bought this book if I hadn't purchased it at a discount price. If you imagine a stack of SparksNotes bound together, you get an idea of what this book has to offer. It's useful as a general tool, especially for high school or lower-division literature studies. However, some of the information is questionable and I wonder at some of the titles selected/omitted for this book. If you can pick a copy up for a few bucks and you're interested in overviews of some major works, I'd say, 'go for it.' However, more advance literary students might turn their noses up. ( )

A great resource for recalling info about books you have read, such as character names and basic plots, a well as to plan what to read next. ( )

More a collection of synopses of literature than literary criticsm, it is a good resource for planning the future reading. ( )