Thomas lands bewildered in Kathmandu, to find a place to scatter the ashes of his older brother Paul, who was a Peace Corps volunteer decades before in Nepal. He meets an American cohort of Paul's and her parents who work with Tibetan refugees. Things happened after Paul left. His friend Helen stayed and became a Buddhist nun. His encounter with them is awkward but his mother in Seattle is thrilled. She is a Lithuanian refugee of World War II and lost her heritage. He finds echoes of his family's history in the plight of Tibetan refugees. Thomas dabbles in meditation and Tantric sex, flirts...

The only copy of a novel is found after 100 years. The author's husband destroyed all the others. Was it too true to life? How was it found? HAPPINESS written by Countess Sofia Zubov in 1902: a Lithuanian-Polish-Russian novel set at the turn of the 20th Century in Lithuania. A story of recovered Lithuanian family history across three languages and three generations. The book contains the novel in English. Plus a history of Sofia and Vladimir Zubov's life and family. In addition, the story of how the book came to light, a timeline of the author's life, and a brief account of the historical...