Explores the reasons why women do not have the same influence, power, and wealth as men do and meditates on the writer-temperament.

"The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story. There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine. Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Center convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation's imagination...

The Odd Women (1893) is a novel by George Gissing. Inspired by a report of over one million more women living in Britain than men, Gissing sought to explore the societal and personal implications of unmarried life while exploring the demands of the growing feminist movement. The Odd Women is a story of romance, independence, and the pressures of society that poses important questions about convention in Victorian England while proving surprisingly...

"Marian Caldwell is a thirty-six year old television producer, living her dream in New York City. With a fulfilling career and satisfying relationship, she has convinced everyone, including herself, that her life is just as she wants it to be. But one night, Marian answers a knock on the door . . . only to find Kirby Rose, an eighteen-year-old girl with a key to a past that Marian thought she had sealed off forever. From the moment Kirby appears on...

Alice Munro's superb new collection contains stories about women of all ages and circumstances, from a young woman who wants to leave her husband and a country girl who takes a job at a resort hotel to a woman who can foresee the future and its consequences.

""Allison Weiss has a great job...a handsome husband...an adorable daughter...and a secret. Allison Weiss is a typical working mother, trying to balance a business, aging parents, a demanding daughter, and a marriage. But when the website she develops takes off, she finds herself challenged to the point of being completely overwhelmed. Her husband's becoming distant, her daughter's acting spoiled, her father is dealing with early Alzheimer's, and...

Hedy Kiesler is lucky. Her beauty leads to a starring role in a controversial film and marriage to a powerful Austrian arms dealer, allowing her to evade Nazi persecution despite her Jewish heritage. But Hedy is also intelligent. At lavish Vienna dinner parties, she overhears the Third Reich's plans. One night in 1937, desperate to escape her controlling husband and the rise of the Nazis, she disguises herself and flees her husband's castle. She lands...

The year Susannah Nelson's parents sent her to school abroad at 18, she said goodbye to her boyfriend, Jake, and never saw him again. Now, at 50, she finds herself regretting the paths not taken. Long married, a mother and a teacher, she should be happy. She feels there's something missing. Returning to her hometown of Pine Ridge, Wash., to care for her aging mother, she also returns to the past, and the choices she made back then.

"Nantucket writer Madeline King couldn't have picked a worse time to have writer's block. Her deadline is looming, her bills are piling up, and inspiration is in short supply. Madeline's best friend Grace, is hard at work transforming her garden into the envy of the island with the help of a ruggedly handsome landscape architect. Before she realizes it, Grace is on the verge of a decision that will irrevocably change her life. Could Grace's crisis...

Twenty-nine-year-old Sydney, once divorced and recently widowed, takes a tutoring job at the summer cottage of the Edwards family on the New Hampshire coast where she is supposed to prepare daughter Julie for the SAT exam, but what she anticipated as a relaxing idyll becomes complicated when she discovers Julie is a "slow" learner, she clashes with Mrs. Edwards, and the two grown Edwards sons become rivals for Sydney's affections.