A master thief waited his whole life to acquire the most beautiful diamond in the world. When he heard it had been purchased, he spent three days trying to steal the rare jewel. He failed.
Finally, the thief walked right up to the owner and asked, "How did you hide this precious jewel from me?"
To which the owner replied, "I placed it where I knew you would never look—in your own pocket!"
This insightful tale opens the first major

...

"When the revered children's book author Mort Lear dies accidentally at his Connecticut home, he leaves his property and all its contents to his trusted assistant, Tomasina Daulair, who is moved by his generosity but dismayed by the complicated and defiant directives in his will. Tommy knew Morty for more than four decades, since meeting him in a Manhattan playground when she was twelve and he was working on sketches for the book that would make him...

"Written in a prose of almost biblical simplicity and beauty, Siddhartha is the story of a soul's long quest for the answer to the enigma of man's role on earth. As a youth, the young Indian Siddhartha meets the Buddha but isn't content with the disciple's role. He must work out his own destiny-- a torturous road on which he experiences a love affair with the beautiful courtesan Kamala, the temptation of success and riches, the heartache of struggling...

"Anna Benz, an American woman in her thirties, lives in comfort and affluence with her Swiss banker husband and their three young children in a picture-perfect suburb of Zurich. Despite the tranquility and order of her domestic existence, Anna is fallingapart inside. Isolated in a foreign country and a faltering marriage, Anna begins three adventures to restart her life: Jungian analysis, German language classes, and a series of extramarital affairs...