The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling novel from one of America's greatest contemporary writers.

Two boys, both sons of doctors, are sent to the top of a mountain for re-education in Mao's China; an education that involves carting buckets of excrement up and down precipitous paths. They discover instead the discreet charm of bourgeois literature and the local tailor's attractive daughter.

Summoning up more than 20 years of Japan's most dramatic history, the geisha's story uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation. It moves from a small fishing village in 1929 to the glamorous and decadent Kyoto of the 30s and on to postwar New York.

Sue Monk Kidd's exquisite first novel has received huge acclaim. 'Wonderfully written, powerful, poignant, and humorous... Do read it' Joanna Trollope

Paul McLeod, patriarch of a Scottish family and a retired newspaper editor, is on a package tour after the death of his wife. The story of his departure from the family home in Scotland and late gesture towards some sort of freedom gives way to his eldest son's life. This a novel about how we live and how family ties can offer redemption and joy.