Botchan is a novel written by Natsume Soseki in 1906. It is considered to be one of the most popular novels in Japan, read by most Japanese during their childhood. The central theme of the story is morality. Natsume Soseki (February 9, 1867 - December 9, 1916), born Natsume Kinnosuke, is widely considered to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji period (1868-1912). He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, Chinese-style poetry, and fairy tales.

Rupert Chawner Brooke (3 August 1887 - 23 April 1915) was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially "The Soldier." He was also known for his boyish good looks, which were said to have prompted the Irish poet W. B. Yeats to describe him as "the handsomest young man in England." He was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a temporary Sub-Lieutenant shortly after his 27th birthday and took part in the Royal Naval Division's Antwerp expedition in October 1914. He sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on 28 February 1915 but developed sepsis from an infected mosquito bite. He died at 4:46 pm on 23 April 1915 in a French hospital ship moored in a bay off the island of Skyros in the Aegean on his way to the landing at Gallipoli. As the expeditionary force had orders to depart immediately, he was buried at 11 pm in an olive grove on Skyros, Greece.

Dream of the Red Chamber is a masterpiece of Chinese literature and one of China's Four Great Classical Novels. It was composed in the mid-18th century during the Qing Dynasty and is generally acknowledged to be a pinnacle of Chinese fiction. The novel is believed to be semi-autobiographical, mirroring the rise and decay of author's own family and, by extension, of the Qing Dynasty. As the author states in the first chapter, it is intended to be a memorial to the women he knew in his youth - friends, relatives and servants. At the center of the story is Bao-yu, a precocious, spoiled, and undisciplined boy and his romantic affinity to his poetry-loving, orphaned cousin, Dai-yu. The novel is remarkable not only for its huge cast of characters and psychological scope, but also for its precise and detailed observation of the life and social structures typical of 18th-century Chinese aristocracy.

First published in 1854, Henry David Thoreau"s groundbreaking "Walden" has influenced generations of readers and continues to inspire and inform anyone with an open mind and a love of nature. There is so much wisdom in Walden, it's impossible to digest it all even in a dozen readings. Pithy lines and quotes by Henry David Thoreau tend to the return to the reader over and over again, as life rolls along. A favorite quote from Thoreau states that he would be happy to live in a pine box, three feet by six feet, as long as he could wake up every morning in the middle of nature. When it came to simplicity and sustainability, Henry David Thoreau was years ahead of his time. Walden, along with the journals of Henry David Thoreau, constitute some of the most useful of and timeless of all American literature.