The Spoils of Poynton is a novel by Henry James, first published under the title The Old Things as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly in 1896 and then as a book in 1897. This novel traces the shifting relations among three human beings and a magnificent collection of art, decorative arts, and furniture arrayed like jewels in a country house called Poynton. Mrs. Gereth, a widow of impeccable taste and iron will, formed the collection over decades only...

A concubine at the palace learns quickly that there are many ways to capture the Emperor's attention. Young Mei knows nothing of the womanly arts, yet she will give the Emperor a gift he can never forget. Mei's intelligence and curiosity, the same traits that make her an outcast among the other concubines, impress the Emperor. But as divided loyalties split the palace in two, Mei is thrown into a perilous battle that she can only hope to survive.

"A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" is the coming-of-age story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the turn-of-the-century Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn. This poignant and moving classic of American literature is filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and incident.

"Children of the Jacaranda Tree is a novel told from alternating perspectives and reveals the intimate side of the Iranian revolution. It centers on Iran's violent summer of 1988 and follows a group of mothers, fathers, children, and lovers as they are affected by the tide of history"-- provided by publisher

The international bestselling winner of the National Book Award and the basis for the Academy Award Best Picture film directed by John Ford. Huw Morgan remembers the days when his home valley was prosperous, verdant, and beautiful-before the mines came to town. The youngest son of a respectable mining family in South Wales, he is now the only one left in the valley, and his reminiscences tell the story of a family and a town both defined and ruined...

A tale of four Chinese-American siblings in New York, and their bewildering return to their roots. In Kinfolk, a sharp dissection of the expatriate experience, Pearl S. Buck unfurls the story of a Chinese family living in New York. Dr. Liang is a comfortably well-off professor of Confucian philosophy, who spreads the notion of a pure and unchanging homeland. Under his influence, his four grown children decide to move to China, despite having spent...

In Irwin Shaw's enthralling novel, the Jordache family grapples with the forces of change in mid-century America  Siblings Rudy, Tom, and Gretchen Jordache grow up in a small town on the Hudson River. They're in their teens in the 1940s, too young to go to war but marked by it nevertheless. Their father is the local baker, and nothing suggests they will live storied lives. Yet, in this sprawling saga, each member of the family pushes against the...

A tale of two dynasties whose fortunes are linked to the fate of an emerging nation. Elvira Vernet narrates Eccentric Neighborhoods as she attempts to solve the mystery of who her parents truly are. Her mother, the beautiful and aristocratic Clarissa Rivas de Santillana, was born into a rarefied world of privilege, one of five daughters on the family's sugar plantation. Elvira's father, Aurelio Vernet, and his three brothers and two sisters were raised...

"Black Elk, the Native American holy man, is known to millions of readers around the world from his 1932 testimonial Black Elk Speaks. Adapted by the poet John G. Neihardt from a series of interviews with Black Elk and other elders at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Black Elk Speaks is one of the most widely read and admired works of American Indian literature. Cryptic and deeply personal, it has been read as a spiritual guide, a philosophical...

Love of Life and Other Stories (1906) is a collection of short stories by American writer Jack London. Containing eight stories by the author, a master of literary Naturalism and an experienced outdoorsman and adventurer, Love of Life and Other Stories explores the experience of humanity on the edge of civilization. Set mostly in Canada and Alaska, these stories follow characters for whom survival is a constant struggle, for whom death is as familiar...