Ambitious, but never seeming so, Kent Haruf reveals a whole community as he interweaves the stories of a pregnant high school girl, a lonely teacher, a pair of boys abandoned by their mother, and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers. From simple elements, Haruf achieves a novel of wisdom and grace--a narrative that builds in strength and feeling until, as in a choral chant, the voices in the book surround, transport, and lift the reader off the ground....

Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something...

From the moment of his adoption by the Earnshaws, the foundling boy Heathcliff devotes himself to their young daughter Catherine. Growing up together, the two share a love that blossoms into romance, until Catherine's hurtful betrayal. But Heathcliff's emotions know no bounds and acknowledge no limits--not even death. Determined to secure the family estate of Wuthering Heights as his own, the tyrannical Heathcliff vents his bitterness on his and Catherine's...