Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Best Loved Folktales of the World (THE WORLD'S MASTERPIECES - THE TREE OF LIFE BINDING)

Best Loved Folktales of the World (THE WORLD'S MASTERPIECES - THE TREE OF LIFE BINDING)

by Joanna Cole

This collection of over 200 folk and fairy tales from all over the world encompasses all cultures. Featuring selections lovingly selected from the personal favorites of folklorists and writers, this major anthology includes stories from West and East Europe, Asia, the Americas, the Caribbean, and Africa.

Imperial Woman (Buck, Pearl S. Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck, 3rd,)

Imperial Woman (Buck, Pearl S. Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck, 3rd,)

by Pearl S. Buck

The story of Tzu Hsi is the story of the last Empress in China. In the novel Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck recreates the life of one of the most intriguing rulers 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 seventeen to become one of hundreds of concubines. But her... (more)

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency: Book 8

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

by Alexander McCall Smith

In the life of Precious Ramotswe–a woman duly proud of her fine traditional build–there is rarely a dull moment, and in the latest installment in the universally beloved No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series there is much happening on Zebra Drive and Tlokweng Road. Mma Ramotswe is experiencing staffing difficulties. First Mr. J.L.B. Mate-koni asks to be put in charge of a case involving an errant husband. But can... (more)

The Hundred Secret Senses (Vintage Contemporaries)

The Hundred Secret Senses (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Amy Tan

The Hundred Secret Senses is an exultant novel about China and America, love and loyalty, the identities we invent and the true selves we discover along the way. Olivia Laguni is half-Chinese, but typically American in her uneasiness with her patchwork family. And no one in Olivia's family is more embarrassing to her than her half-sister, Kwan Li. For Kwan speaks mangled English, is cheerfully deaf to Olivia's... (more)

On Crimes and Punishments

by Voltaire, Cesare Beccaria

Published in 1764, On Crimes and Punishments by Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) courted both success and controversy in Europe and North America. Enlightenment luminaries and enlightened monarchs alike lauded the text and looked to it for ideas that might help guide the various reform projects of the day. The equality of every citizen before the law, the right to a fair trial, the abolition of the death penalty, the... (more)

Pavilion of Women

by Pearl S. Buck

From the author of The Good Earth comes the story of Madame Wu, a woman whose surprising decision to retire from married life and select a concubine for her husband upsets her extended household. "A searching, adult study of women written with high seriousness and sympathy." - The New York Times Book Review

Wild Swans

Three Daughters of China

by Rowena Cooper, Jung Chang

A new edition of one of the best-selling and best-loved books of recent years. The publication of Wild Swans in 1991 was a worldwide phenomenon. Not only did it become the best-selling non-fiction book in British publishing history, with sales of well over two million, it was received with unanimous critical acclaim, and was named the winner of the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year Award.... (more)

KIM.

by Rudyard Kipling

The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces

The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces

by Maynard Mack

This groundbreaking Norton Anthology offers the best of the literatures of India, China, Japan, the Middle East, Africa, and native America alongside the masterpieces of the Western tradition. These texts have been selected and prepared by expert scholars and translators who are also committed undergraduate teachers. Like all Norton Anthologies, the Expanded Edition in One Volume of The Norton Anthology of World... (more)

Dragon Seed.Pearl S. Buck

Dragon Seed.

by Pearl S. Buck

The Arabian Nights, Their Best-Known Tales (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press)

The Arabian Nights, Their Best-Known Tales (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press)

by Kate Douglas Wiggin, Nora A. Smith

Originally published in 1909, this refurbished edition contains twelve stories adapted from Tales of a Thousand and One Nights, featuring the adventures of Ali Baba, Aladdin, and Sinbad and complemented by the work of a famous American artist.

Encyclopedia of Mythology

by Arthur Cotterell

Lively and informed narrative by two expert authorities in their field.

City Boy

by Jan Michael

Set in contemporary Malawi, a poignant account of an orphaned boy's transition from city life to village life. Sam's widowed mother has died from "the Disease," and Sam is claimed by his aunt Mercy, who lives in the small African village where Sam's mother was born and raised. The gap between Sam's life in the city, where he had his own room, attended private school, and used a computer, and his new life in the... (more)

Peony

by Pearl S. Buck

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... (more)

Metamorphoses

by Ovid, Ted Hughes

Ovid’s sensuous and witty poem brings together a dazzling array of mythological tales, ingeniously linked by the idea of transformation—often as a result of love or lust—where men and women find themselves magically changed into new and sometimes extraordinary beings. Beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the deification of Augustus, Ovid interweaves many of the best-known myths and... (more)

Phantastes

by George MacDonald

One of nineteenth-century novelist George MacDonald's most important works, Phantastes tells the story of its narrator's dreamlike adventures in fairyland, masterfully recounted to convey a sense of profound sadness and a poignant longing for death. Introduced by C.S.

British Poetry and Prose

Mythology: Tales of Ancient Civilizations

Mythology: Tales of Ancient Civilizations

by Timothy Roland Roberts

The Kitchen God's Wife

by Amy Tan

With the same narrative skills and evocative powers that made her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, a national bestseller, Tan now tells the story of Winnie Louie, an aging Chinese woman unfolding a life's worth of secrets to her suspicious, Americanized daughter.

The Good Earth

by Pearl S. Buck

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP A poignant tale about the life and labors of a Chinese farmer during the sweeping reign of the country¹s last emperor. EACH ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:  A concise introduction that gives readers important background information  A chronology of the author's life and work  A timeline of significant events that... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: international literature

by Joanna Cole

by Pearl S. Buck

by Alexander McCall Smith

by Amy Tan

by Voltaire, Cesare Beccaria

by Pearl S. Buck

Three Daughters of China

by Rowena Cooper, Jung Chang

by Rudyard Kipling

by Maynard Mack

by Pearl S. Buck

by Kate Douglas Wiggin, Nora A. Smith

by Arthur Cotterell

by Jan Michael

by Pearl S. Buck

by Ovid, Ted Hughes

by George MacDonald

by Timothy Roland Roberts

by Amy Tan

by Pearl S. Buck