Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is one of those novels that utterly transports you to another time and place, so much so that when you put down the book you are astonished to find normal life going on around you. The relationships and struggles of the narrator, Lily, a woman of nineteenth century rural China, ring familiar and true, no matter how strange the details may be to us now. Footbinding, arranged marriages, and nu shu, a secret written language used solely by women, are among the historical details that come very much alive. This is a moving, thought-provoking, poignant novel. -EB