Showing results for "Pearls" in Literary Fiction

“There it lay, the great pearl, perfect as the moon.” Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then...

On Christmas night of 1998, Maria Meyers learns that her 20-year-old daughter, Pearl, has chained herself outside the American embassy in Dublin, where she intends to starve herself to death. Although Maria was once a student radical and still proudly lives by her beliefs, gentle, book-loving Pearl has never been interested in politics nor in the Catholicism her mother rejected years before. What, then, is driving her to martyr herself?

On her 40th birthday, Madame Wu carries out a decision she has been planning for a long time: she tells her husband that after 24 years their physical life together is now over and she wishes him to take a second wife. The House of Wu, one of the oldest and most revered in China, is thrown into an uproar by her decision, but Madame Wu will not be dissuaded and arranges for a young country girl to come take her place in bed.

Sons begins where The Good Earth ended: revolution is sweeping through China. Wang Lung is on his deathbed in the house of his fathers, and his three sons stand ready to inherit his hard-won estate. One son has taken the family's wealth for granted and become a landlord; another is a thriving merchant and moneylender; and the youngest, an ambitious general, is destined to be a leader in the country.

On the eve of a popular rebellion, the Chinese government starts to crack down in cities across the country. Fleeing the turmoil, Wang Yuan, the son of a famous general and grandson of the patriarch of The Good Earth, leaves for America to study agriculture. When he returns to China six years later, he encounters a nation still in the grip of violent uprisings. Unprepared for the social upheaval, Wang is torn by the tensions between old traditions and new ways and by his formidable family, whose struggles he hopes to solve.

The story of Tzu Hsi is the story of the last empress in China. In this audiobook, Pearl S. Buck recreates the life of one of the most intriguing rules during a time of intense turbulence. Tzu Hsi was born into one of the lowly ranks of the Imperial dynasty. According to custom, she moved to the Forbidden City at the age of 17 to become one of hundreds of concubines. But her singular beauty and powers of manipulation quickly moved her into the position of Second Consort.

When Ali inherits her great-aunt’s house, she immediately moves her whole family in, despite the warnings that there is something strange about the place. Unfazed, Ali begins redecorating, going through the rooms, making each one her own with the help of her daughter, Kelly. But when under the wallpaper in Kelly’s new room they discover a scrawled message from 1944, Ali begins to question the history of the house as she knows it.

Beneath the elegant facade of Victorian high society, the rules of danger and desire are the only rules that apply for the mysterious men of the St James Society. New York Times best seller Liz Carlyle carries listeners deep into this realm of intrigue and passion once more in her breathtaking historical romance sizzler, a scorching story of a very proper lady who flees her home in a far corner of the British Empire, entrusting her safety and her heart to a dangerous outlaw in Victorian London.

A dramatic chapter of American history comes vividly to life in this evocative tale of a mother and daughter navigating the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On a beautiful December day, young Marty Langsmith’s life explodes into flames. Evacuated with her mother, April, to the mainland, Marty’s new world is haunted by nightmares of the lion in the lei shop, a creature fabricated by a neighbor that’s said to devour happy children. Meanwhile April, powerless to shield her daughter from the devastation of the Japanese attack and the uncertainty of life without her deployed army father, is caught between her longing for the past and her hope for the future.

Min oskuld och Pearl Harbor är en hudlös, ärlig skildring av den fattiga, vita underklassmiljön under den ekonomiska depressionen i 1930-talets Los Angeles. Den unge Henry Chinaski kämpar med tillvaron i ett barndomshem präglat av en passiv mor och en våldsam far, som låter sin frustration gå ut över sonen i form av systematisk aga.

Brother and sister Jerry and Daisy Lou Malone leave behind their provincial Midwestern upbringing to test their mettle in the big, beckoning world of 1920s America. For Jerry, the future lies west, with like-minded pioneer souls keen to play the “land game” as homesteaders on the Great Plains. Daisy, in turn, heads for the lights and luxe life of New York City, hoping to sing her way to stardom.

The Romance Reader is her absorbing tale of a headstrong, teenaged girl attempting to live in two worlds: one traditional, one modern. Since Rachel is the rabbi’s oldest child, everyone expects her to set a proper example for other young believers. But at night, after everyone is in bed, she hungrily reads books - forbidden books about romance and contemporary women. She wonders if the life she reads about in those pages actually exists. Do beautiful, daring women really travel alone?

"For Christ sake don’t become a fluffmeister," are the last words Barnaby Griswold gets from his father. But despite trying to turn out otherwise, Barnaby knows himself a fool and already makes his living as a fluffmeister, as a puffer-up of investments. Well-bred, more or less educated, friendly to everyone, Barnaby is in fact foolishly successful. Until he blows it all. At 46, disgraced and broke and lonely, Barnaby must repair his life. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll find out that doing the foolish thing can lead to redemption.

For Naomi Ash, growing up the daughter of a clairvoyant medium exposed her to the chicanery of a business where telling people what they want to hear is the only currency. And the sleepy hamlet of Train Line, New York, nestled against a frigid lake in the westernmost fringes of the state, was founded on, built, and is still sustained by it. Now a young woman and a practicing medium herself, Naomi still lives in the place that nourished and raised her - the place where she fell in love. Love, however, can be deadly....

Young Peony is sold into a rich Chinese household as a bondmaid - an awkward role in which she is more a servant, but less a daughter. As she grows into a lovely, provocative young woman, Peony falls in love with the family's only son. However, tradition forbids them to wed. How she resolves her love for him and her devotion to her adoptive family unfolds in this profound tale, based on true events in China over a century ago.

Rann falls for the beautiful and equally brilliant Stephanie Kung, who lives in Paris with her Chinese father and has not seen her American mother since she abandoned the family when Stephanie was six years old. Both Rann and Stephanie yearn for a sense of genuine identity. Rann feels plagued by his voracious intellectual curiosity and strives to integrate his life of the mind with his experience in the world. Stephanie struggles to reconcile the Chinese part of herself with her American and French selves.

The Complete Charles Dickens Collection: Part Two contains all of Charles Dickens' major published works from 1844 to 1865. Dickens wrote most of his most influential and beloved novels during these years - introducing us to characters such as Pip, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit, Esther Summerson, and many more who have lived long in the memory for generations. Also included here are a selection of his essays, travelogues, letters, and a short biography of Dickens by his daughter, Mamie.

Performed by Nancy Pearl, Jeff Schwager and a multi-cast that includes book contributors Luis Alberto Urrea, Siri Hustvedt, Laurie Frankel, Vendela Vida, and Richard Ford. The Writer’s Library audiobook also features real conversations with Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman, and Laila Lalami...

מורה חיילת החולמת להגשים פנטזיות חינוכיות בעיירת פיתוח ונתקלת בקבלת פנים אלימה; גבר רודף נשים שאשתו ניחנה ביכולת לעקוב אחריו מרחוק; נערה הנוסעת לסדנת כתיבה בעיר הגדולה ולומדת שם שיעור על חשיבותה של נקודת המבט; רופא חילוני המזמין אישה חרדית לשיחה על אודות בנה שהרחיקה מעליה לפני שנים.

The McKay family gathers for a week-long holiday at a rambling old house to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Robert and Mary. In recent years only funerals and sudden, severe illnesses have been able to draw them together, and as they gather in the splendid rooms of Hunting Manor, their differences are soon uncomfortably apparent. For all their history, their traditions, the connective strands of DNA, they are relative strangers. There are truths unspoken, but the question is: How much truth can a family really stand?