"A monk leads a simple life. He studies his books late into the evening and searches for truth in their pages. His cat Pangur leads a simple life, too, chasing prey in the darkness. As night turns to dawn, Pangur leads his companion to the truth he has been seeking"-- Provided by publisher.

In ancient China, a young monk at the Shaolin Temple develops a new style of self-defense after spending the summer alone in the Song Mountains and observing a small praying mantis battling a much larger beetle. Based on the seventeenth-century legend of Wong Long and the founding of praying mantis kung fu.

Brother Cadfael must intervene when a prisoner exchange is interrupted by love and murder In February of 1141, men march home from war to Shrewsbury, but the captured sheriff Gilbert Prestcote is not among them. Elis, a young Welsh prisoner, is delivered to the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul to begin a tale that will test Brother Cadfael's sense of justice-and his heart.   By good fortune, it seems, the prisoner can be exchanged as Sheriff Prestcote's...

When a harsh priest is drowned, Brother Cadfael discovers a long list of suspects, including a young man who isn't who he claims to be In a mild December in the year of our Lord 1141, a new priest comes to the parishioners of the Foregate outside the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Father Ailnoth brings with him a housekeeper and her nephew-and a disposition that invites murder.   Brother Cadfael quickly sees that father Ailnoth is a harsh man...

Brother Giovanni is a happy man and the best baker his monastery has ever seen, but when he is tasked with preparing the children for the Bishop's visit, he has no luck until he twists some bread dough into a special shape, sprinkles it with salt, and offers it as a reward for learning prayers.

Through the power of faith, a monk named Abba Jacob and his loyal rat terrier, Snook, are reunited after being separated by a ferocious storm.

With one civil war on hold, Brother Cadfael returns home, only to stumble into another bloody conflict In the summer of 1144, a strange calm has settled over England. The armies of King Stephen and the Empress Maud, the two royal cousins contending for the throne, have temporarily exhausted each other. On the whole, Brother Cadfael considers peace a blessing. Still, a little excitement never comes amiss to a former soldier, and Cadfael is delighted...

Crossing paths at an inn, thirteenth-century travelers impart the tales of a monastery oblate, a Jewish refugee, and a psychic peasant girl with a loyal greyhound, the three of whom join forces on a chase through France to escape persecution.

In Ireland in the Middle Ages, young Brother Cuthbert, known for making mistakes and giving up easily, is chosen through a miscommunication to serve as scribe for an illuminated manuscript of the Nativity story, through which the Abbot hopes to make the monastery famous.

"To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything 'I refuse to be nothing...' In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness... In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family's eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness,...