"Ella's world is changed when Katherine St. James, a mysterious white researcher from Princeton, arrives in their racially divided Mississippi town. The community is immediately suspicious -what does Katherine want, and why is she really there? As tensions mount and rumors swirl, and the tide swings against her, Ella and Katherine St. James are drawn into a complicated friendship that drowns out the outside world.... until it doesn't, and the relationship...

When Olive Wellwood's oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of the new Victoria and Albert Museum--a talented working-class boy who could be a character out of one of Olive's magical tales--she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends--a world that conceals more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined and that will soon be eclipsed by far greater forces.

In his latest novel, Mo Yan-arguably China's most important contemporary literary voice-recreates the historical sweep and earthy exuberance of his much acclaimed novel Red Sorghum. In a country where patriarchal favoritism and the primacy of sons survived multiple revolutions and an ideological earthquake, this epic novel is first and foremost about women, with the female body serving as the book's central metaphor. The protagonist, Mother, is born...