Pearl S. Buck

The second installment in Pearl S. Buck's acclaimed Good Earth trilogy: the powerful story of three brothers whose greed will bring their family to the brink of ruin. Sons begins where The Good Earth ended: Revolution is sweeping through China. Wang Lung is on his deathbed in the house of his fathers, and his three sons stand ready to inherit his hard-won estate. One son has taken the family's wealth for granted and becomes a landlord; another is...

The Nobel Prize-winning author's perceptive fable of cross-cultural passions in nineteenth-century China. In 1850s China, a young girl, Peony, is sold to work as a bondmaid for a rich Jewish family in Kaifeng. Jews have lived for centuries in this region of the country, but by the mid-nineteenth century, assimilation has begun taking its toll on their small enclave. When Peony and the family's son, David, grow up and fall in love with one another,...

The conclusion to Buck's celebrated Good Earth trilogy: the story of a man's return to a homeland embroiled in revolution. On the eve of a popular rebellion, the Chinese government starts to crack down in cities across the country. Fleeing the turmoil, Wang Yuan, the son of a famous general and grandson of the patriarch of The Good Earth, leaves for America to study agriculture. When he returns to China six years later, he encounters a nation still...

In this novel about dissidence and exile, a man is confronted with the decision to either desert his family or let his homeland be ravaged When Wu I-wan starts taking an interest in revolution, trouble follows: Winding up in prison, he becomes friends with fellow dissident En-lan. Later, his name is put on a death list and he's shipped off to Japan. Thankfully, his father, a wealthy Shanghai banker, has made arrangements for his exile, putting him...

A young farmer named Wang Lung marries a selfless, loyal slave girl, O-Lan. Wang is initially devoted to the land and rises to prosperity. Later, however, Wang deserts the land and takes a second wife and tragedy threatens to overwhelm him. Eventually Wang realizes that the land and O-Lan mean more to him than his wealth.