Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck (2010, Unabridged, Compact Disc)

Synopsis
"It was her 40th birthday. Madam Wu sat before the tiled mirror of her toilet case and looked at her own calm face."

Key Details
Author:	Pearl S. Buck
Language:	English
Publisher:	Springwater
Format:	Audio
ISBN-10:	1598597701
ISBN-13:	9781598597707

Additional Details
Narrated by:	Adam Verner
Edition Description:	Unabridged

Size
Thickness:	1 in
Weight:	10.4 oz

Publisher's Note
On her fortieth birthday, Madame Wu carries out a decision she has been planning for a long time: she tells her husband that after twenty-four years their physical life together is now over and she wishes him to take a second wife. The House of Wu, one of the oldest and most revered in China, is thrown into an uproar by her decision, but Madame Wu will not be dissuaded and arranges for a young country girl to come take her place in bed.

Elegant and detached, Madame Wu orchestrates this change as she manages everything in the extended household of more than sixty relatives and servants. Alone in her own quarters, she relishes her freedom and reads books she has never been allowed to touch. When her son begins English lessons, she listens, and is soon learning from the "foreigner," a free-thinking priest named Brother Andre, who will change her life. 

The Pavilion of Women is a thought-provoking combination of Old China, unorthodox Christianity, and liberation, written by Pearl S. Buck, a Nobel Prize winner born and raised in China. Few books raise so many questions about the nature and roles of men and women, about self-discipline and happiness. At the center is the amazing Madame Wu - brilliant, beautiful, full of contradictions and authority.

Industry Reviews
"'Pavilion of Women' is centered around a vital theme which deals with one of the essential problems of being, the struggle of the human spirit to free itself."
San Francisco Chronicle

"A slight pallor, emanating from the dispassionate heroine, pervades the book. Yet it is a searching, adult study of women written with high seriousness and sympathy, which should find a multitude of women readers. Mrs. Buck's grave, unaccented prose is well suited to the delicate matters at hand."
New York Times Book Review - Mary McGrory (11/24/1946)