Spanning three generations, this novel of family and myth is told through a series of flashbacks that depict events of staggering horror set against a landscape of gemlike beauty as the Chinese battle both the Japanese invaders and each other in the turbulent 1930s.As the novel opens, a group of villagers, led by Commander Yu, the narrator's grandfather, prepare to attack the advancing Japanese. Yu sends his 14-year-old son back home to get food for his men; but as Yu's wife return...

During China's collectivist era in the later 1950s, a rural work team set to repair a river floodgate receives a new labour recruit: Hei-hai, a skinny, sorry, silent boy. Assigned to pump the bellows at the worksite forge, Hei-hai proves indifferent to pain or suffering, but eerily sensitive to the beauties of the natural world. As the worksite becomes embroiled in human jealousy and strife, Hei-hai's eyes remain trained on a world that only he can see, searching for wonders that only he u...

In this multifaceted tour de force, Mo Yan flexes his skills both as an astute observer of society and history and as a leading practitioner of experimental and imaginative fiction.Ximen Nao, a wealthy landowner, loses his farm and his life as angry villagers redistribute the land after the establishment of the People's Republic of China. In Lord Yama's underworld, Ximen refuses to admit any wrongdoing even under torture. Exasperated, Yama returns him to his farm as a donkey, the f...

This powerful novel by Mo Yan—one of contemporary China’s most famous and prolific writers—is both a stirring love story and an unsparing critique of political corruption during the final years of the Qing Dynasty, China’s last imperial epoch.Sandalwood Death is set during the Boxer Rebellion (1898–1901)—an anti-imperialist struggle waged by North China’s farmers and craftsmen in opposition to Western influence. Against a broad historical canvas, the novel centers on the i...

When Special Investigator Ding Gou’er arrives in the fictional province of Liquorland, the air reeks of coal and liquor. Tasked with investigating rumours that local officials are practising cannibalism, he transforms from observer to participant in the bacchanalian rounds of lavish banquets and intemperate drinking. Unable to keep up with Diamond Jin, an official with a notorious capacity for holding his drink, Ding falls into an intoxicated haze until the arrival of a new dish at the ban...

This contemplative, semiautobiographical picture book by Nobel Laureate Mo Yan, with illustrations by Hans Christian Anderson Award nominee Zhu Chengliang, is perfect for readers of A Different Pond and Watercress.One morning, so early that fog still sleeps on the surface of the river, a young boy accompanies his yeye seven miles north to the grassy field behind their home to cut satintail to feed the livestock. But when a massive gale scatters th...

It’s been three years since Sherilee Malcolm was acquitted of the murder of her former mentor and lover, Otto Workman. A popular writer, Sherilee goes underground and creates a fictional character for herself, living a life of illusion. And then, one day, it cracks.Washington “Wash” Shank, a detective hired by Sherilee’s lawyers to prove her innocent, is under siege from the firm where he works. His job was to ruin the confidence of the lead witness against Sherilee. Now that man, ...

From the acclaimed author of The Last Checkmate comes a brilliant novel spanning from the Russian Revolution to the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union and following two unforgettable women…their fates intertwined by ties of family and interrupted by the tragedy of war. Perfect for readers of Kate Quinn, Pam Jenoff, and Elena Gorokhova.Russia 1917: Beautiful, educated Svetlana Petrova defied her stifling aristocratic family to join a revol...

Proper Boston widow Jane Weber moves to the Dakota Territories under layers of lies to save her reputation. Stirring up controversy, Jane rooms with the last Blackfoot Sioux in town while navigating a mercurial friendship with the fiercely independent town grocer. In Flats Junction, though, everyone has an untold story. Battling her shortcomings, falsehoods, and swallowing her inherent curiosity, Jane must choose how she will truly reinvent herself, and where she belongs.

Gracie is a serious, sensitive, aspiring writer; Jannie, her autistic younger sister, is passionate about birds. As children, they were taken by their mother on a senseless trip through Europe that ended in their mother’s suicide. Now, in Berkeley, their father works tirelessly to find ways to engage Jannie, while Gracie—unwilling to reveal the truth about her mother’s suicide or her sister’s autism to anyone outside her family—weaves a web of lies around herself that isolate her even as J...

Excerpt: "There was a ball in the old Pentland house because for the first time in nearly forty years there was a young girl in the family to be introduced to the polite world of Boston and to the elect who had been asked to come on from New York and Philadelphia. So the old house was all bedizened with lanterns and bunches of late spring flowers, and in the bare, white-painted, dignified hallway a negro band, hidden discreetly by flowers, sat making noisy, obscene music. Sybil Pentland wa...

Winner of the Minnesota Book Award and a 2022 Great Group Reads Selection"The Barrens grabbed me from the opening pages and never let go."—Michael Punke, author of The RevenantTwo young women attending college decide to have a summer adventure canoeing the rapids-strewn Thelon River that runs 450 miles through the uninhabited Barren Lands of subarctic Canada. Holly made the trip once before with a group of skilled paddlers she trained with ...