Kinfolk - A Novel of China

Pearl S. Buck

Summary

Four Chinese-American siblings make an emotional journey to their ancestral home in this novel from the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Good Earth.   Dr. Liang is a comfortably well-off professor of Confucian philosophy who fled China because of the government’s crackdown on intellectuals. Now, settled in 1940s New York, he believes in the notion of a pure and unchanging homeland. Under his influence, Liang’s four grown children make the momentous decision to move to China, despite having spent their whole lives in the United States. But as the siblings try in various ways to adjust to a new place and culture, they learn that the definition of home is far different from what they expected.  Kinfolk is the involving story of an American family and literary fiction of the highest order. The New York Times–bestselling author of Dragon Seed, China Sky, and many other novels, explores the complexities of immigration, multiculturalism, nationality, and the primordial human longing to find our roots.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

Available since: 08/21/2012.

Other books that might interest you

American Population The...

H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. His work also included two books on recreational war games. Wells is now best remembered for his science fiction novels and is often called the "father of science fiction", along with Jules Verne and the publisher Hugo Gernsback.THE AMERICAN POPULATION: The social conditions and social future of America constitute a system of problems quite distinct and separate from the social problems of any other part of the world.

Show book

The Stranger

Albert Camus

With millions of copies sold The Stranger is one of the  most widely read novels in the world. It stands as perhaps the  greatest existentialist tale ever conceived. When a young  Algerian named Meursault kills a man, his subsequent  imprisonment and trial are puzzling and absurd. This  remarkable translation by Matthew Ward has been  considered the definitive English version since its original publication.

Show book

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Victor Hugo

When Quasimodo appears before the masses as the "Pope of Fools," the crowd beholds an enormous cyclops-like creature—             the hunchback's whole body seems a twisted grimace. Yet, with all his deformity, there is a certain grace and agility in him, and he possesses an endearing passion. When Esmerelda, the beautiful Romani woman, stands between his two executioners, Quasimodo makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Show book

Vampyre The - A Tale

John William Polidori

John William Polidori was born on 7th September 1795 in London to Gaetano Polidori, an Italian political émigré scholar, and Anna Maria Pierce, an English governess. He was the eldest of 8 children.

From 1804 Polidori was a pupil at the recently formed Ampleforth College. In 1810 he proceeded to the University of Edinburgh, where he wrote a thesis on sleepwalking and received his degree as a doctor of medicine on 1st August 1815. He was 19.

In 1816, Dr. Polidori was given the job of Byron’s personal physician and accompanied him on a trip through Europe. The publisher John Murray offered Polidori £500 to keep a diary of their travels. At the Villa Diodati, Byron’s rented villa at Lake Geneva in Switzerland, the pair met with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont.

One night in June, after the company had read aloud from a French collection of German horror tales, Byron suggested they each write a ghost story. There were to be two outstanding works from that evening; ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley and Polidori’s ‘The Vampyre’ which would be the first published modern vampire story in English.

Dismissed by Byron, Polidori traveled in Italy and then returned to England. His story, ‘The Vampyre’, was published in the April 1819 issue of New Monthly Magazine without his permission. Much to the annoyance of both Polidori and Byron it was the latter who was credited as author.

Polidori also had published ‘Ximenes, The Wreath & Other Poems’ in 1819 and his long theological and sacred poem ‘The Fall of the Angels’ in 1821 as well as two plays, essays and his diary.

Despite his youth Polidori was increasingly worn down by gambling debts and depression.

John William Polidori died on 24th August 1821 at the age of only 25 in London. Although his death was recorded as death by natural causes, strong evidence asserts that it was suicide by means of cyanide.

Show book

The Mortal Immortal

Mary Shelley

When the philosopher's apprentice unwittingly swallows his elixir of life, he faces a future of eternal youth and immortality. Initially this feels like a wonderful blessing... but as time goes on and his beloved wife ages before his youthful eyes and spirals into jealousy and resentment of his permanent youthful appearance, the gift begins to feel more like a terrible curse.

Show book

Don Quixote de la Mancha

Miguel Cervantes

Entranced by romantic tales of heroism and chivalry, Don Quixote—             self-proclaimed knight errant—             embarks on a delusional quest for fame and adventure. The eccentric Spanish country gentleman and his companion Sancho encounter an array of unforgettable characters and undertake some of the most famously foolhardy exploits in literature. Listeners will delight in following their chivalrous misadventures to right wrongs and punish evil in this timeless, laugh-out-loud tale.

Show book