What I am reading

I am going to write about the book I am reading. Yes I have read the 2ND book from Stephanie meyer's Twilight series-"New Moon". But that will come later. First I want to write about a very gentle,romantic book I have read. I am a big fan of romantic stories. So I read lots of Mills and Boon books. In these books I like Betty Neels more than others. But this is also not the subject of today's post.
So where ever I go generally I find a friend who is also an avid Mills and Boon reader. (Not at all a hard task!) We then share many books and talk about it for hours. (Better than gossiping!?) One such friend gave me this book. The condition of the book was not so good. It was not a Mills and Boon either. But she recommended this book so strongly that ignoring all my inner protests I started reading it. I completed the book in one day.( only 155 pages) I liked it so much. I shared that story with my comments with at least 5 more people including my Husband of course. I always bore him with my chatter. He is not always that patient with me. (Generally he ignores me.) But this time he heard with interest. (I don't know his interior motives.) I thought it impressed him as well. So I was very happy. I was even thinking of translating it in my mother-tongue.
The name of the book is "Letter From Peking". Name of the Author is 'Pearl S. Buck'. This book is self narrated story of an American woman 'Eve' , married to the Chinese man 'Gerald'. Her name is 'Elizabeth' but Gerald calls her 'Eve' as he quotes "Eve, you are my first love!"
The story starts in the year 1950 in the month of September the 25Th. On this day, Eve receives a letter from her Husband. The most awaited letter. But after reading half the letter, Eve can't read the letter and just keeps it in the secret place. She has a 'feeling' about this letter she can not explain. So she just keeps it half read. Thus the story starts with the mystery and unfolds the lives of Eve, Gerald and Rennie; their 17 year old Son. 'Baba' Is also an important character in the story. He is Gerald's Scottish father with the surname 'MacLeod'.
I liked this book very much as the conflict within the persons who have to deal with two different cultures of two different countries is portrayed very effectively here.Especially when they have to make difficult choices in their life. No harsh language, no controversy, no hard feelings are reflected any where in the story!
When we come to know about Gerald's mother and her conflict and the choices she made for her son; we perfectly understand Gerald for not leaving communist China even if he had a choice to leave. Rennie also have to make choices but as he has a strong mother and half the decision made by his father, he is able to do it with less inner conflict!
The character of Mei-lan comes as a surprise half way through the book. After reading Mei-lan's letter, Eve finally reads her Husband's half read letter. Even if Mei-lan is an unusual character and only meets us through her letters to Eve I liked her as much as Eve at the end of the story.
Many of us go through the identity crisis of different kind. This book showed me the most delicate and understanding way to solve that problem. I heard that Pearl Buck writes stories with Chinese culture backgrounds and she has written more books. So my project is now to find her other books and read them!