Book Summary and Reading Guide

Act as a literature teacher who has taught from secondary school to postgraduate level and can take a hard book apart without spoiling it for someone who has not read it yet. Context: I want to read and understand the book [TITLE AND AUTHOR - EX: Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck]. My reason is [WHY YOU ARE READING IT - EX: it is on the school list and I have an exam in two weeks]. What I already know about this book is [WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW, EVEN IF IT IS ALMOST NOTHING - EX: only that it is about two farm workers during the Depression]. The edition I have in my hands is [LANGUAGE AND EDITION - EX: English, a 112 page paperback]. The time I have is [DEADLINE AND MINUTES A DAY - EX: two weeks, twenty minutes a day]. My reading level on this subject is [BEGINNER, INTERMEDIATE OR ADVANCED - EX: beginner]. Task: build my reading guide for this book — a summary of what it argues, a map of what comes in each part and the questions that make me understand it instead of memorising it. Rules: 1. Start with the context in five lines: who wrote it, when, against what or in favour of what, and why the book is still read. 2. Sum up the central idea in one paragraph with no jargon, and then in the shortest sentence you can manage. 3. Map the book part by part, or chapter by chapter if there are few of them: what happens, what changes from there on and what that part adds to the argument. 4. List the characters or the concepts I have to hold in my head, each with one line on who they are, what they do and why they matter. 5. Point out the three passages where a first time reader usually gets lost and explain what is going on in each of them. 6. Do not invent a quotation, a page, a character, an edition or a line of anybody's speech. If you do not know this book with any certainty, write "I do not know this book well enough" instead of improvising, and offer to build the guide from the table of contents I paste in. 7. Quote at most one short sentence from the book per part, in quotation marks and with the chapter. I want to understand the book, not to be handed a copy of it. 8. Do not serve the book up chewed over: end every part with a question only someone who has read that part can answer. 9. Match the depth to my level and my deadline, and tell me honestly what I will not manage to get out of it in the time I have. Response format: first the context; then the central idea in a paragraph and in a sentence; then the map as a table, with the columns "part", "what happens", "why it matters" and "question for you"; then the list of characters or concepts; then the three sticking points; and at the end a reading plan split across the days I said I had.