Will Rees feels at home. It's been a long time since he last felt this way-not since before his wife died years ago and he took to the road as a traveling weaver. Now, in 1796, Rees is back on his Maine farm, living with his teenaged son, David, and his housekeeper, Lydia-whose presence contributes more towards his happiness than he's ready to admit. But his domestic bliss is shattered the morning a visitor brings news of an old friend's murder. Nate...

"It's 1796, and traveling weaver Will Rees is visiting Salem, Massachusetts. He's in town to buy a luxurious gift for his pregnant wife, a few yards of well-made fabric from the traders at the famed Salem harbor. While traveling through Salem, however, Rees comes upon a funeral procession for the deceased Mrs. Antiss Boothe. When Rees happens upon Twig, a friend who fought alongside him in the war, he learns that Mrs. Boothe had been very ill, and...

Amitav Ghosh's extraordinary novel makes a claim on literary turf held by Gabriel García Márquez and Salman Rushdie. In a vivid and magical story, The Circle of Reason traces the misadventures of Alu, a young master weaver in a small Bengali village who is falsely accused of terrorism. Alu flees his home, traveling through Bombay to the Persian Gulf to North Africa with a bird-watching policeman in pursuit.