D. Kuchler

In a voice both haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri describes her life as a geisha. Taken from her home at the age of nine, she is sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Witness her transformation as you enter a world where appearances are paramount, virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder, women beguile powerful men, and love is scorned as illusion.

The Thorn Birds is a robust, romantic saga of a singular family, the Clearys. It begins in the early part of the 20th century, when Paddy Cleary moves his wife, Fiona, and their 7 children to Drogheda, the vast Australian sheep station owned by his autocratic and childless older sister. It ends more than half a century later, when the only survivor of the third generation, the brilliant actress Justine O'Neill, embarks on a course of life and love halfway around the world from her roots.