In ancient Judea, a Jewish aristocrat opposing Roman occupation of his homeland reunites with his childhood friend, now a Roman commander — setting in motion a saga of betrayal, adventure, tragedy, revenge, and faith.
When his family moves from their home in Berlin to a strange new house in Poland, young Bruno befriends Shmuel, a boy who lives on the other side of the fence where everyone seems to be wearing striped pajamas.
A radio astronomer receives the first extraterrestrial radio signal ever picked up on Earth. As the world powers scramble to decipher the message and decide upon a course of action, she must make some difficult decisions between her beliefs, the truth, and reality.
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a battle of wills with both her controlling husband and a rugged frontiersman to whom she develops a forbidden attraction.
Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.
Ellen Shannon, the daughter of self-made Irish politician Pat Shannon, is engaged to Ted Breslin, but because Pat began his career as a menial laborer, Ted's mother, Mrs.
Elinor Shale's happiness at being engaged to Gerald Forster is interrupted by the arrival of her sister Lucy, who confesses that she will soon give birth to an illegitimate child.
In order to help her poverty-stricken family, Jonnie Consadine, a strong-willed young woman from the Blue Ridge Mountains, comes to the city and takes a job in a mill, while her uncle, Pros Passmore, continues his endless search for a lost silver mine.
A black maid is sitting in the kitchen doing some chore or another (difficult to see what.) Bobby Bumps has hidden inside a box and is trying to get something from the larder without the maid seeing him.