"It's been more than seventeen years since the Pennington family were all together in the same room. But now, on the eve of William's seventy-fifth birthday, all three generations have gathered with the intention of putting the past behind them. If only it were that simple ... And time is running out. Especially for William, as the world he have always known begins to crumble around him. The Gathered Leaves is a moving, poignant and funny family drama that sees the weight of family history, of reputation, and of expectation, all descend on one family over Easter weekend in 1997"--Page 4 of cover.

This collection of Japanese women’s diary literature (nikki bungaku) begins with The Takemitsu Journal (also known as The Tale of the Tōnomine Lesser Captain, c. 962), an important precursor and model for the famous Kagerō Diary, and Tales of Toyokage (c. 971), a fictionalized reworking of his own poems by Regent Koremasa himself. It also includes the first complete English translations of the Hon’in no Jiju and of the narrative section of The Collected Poems of Lady Ise. The volume concludes with the Tales of Takamura (1185-1333), which Mostow describes as a site of struggle between masculine and feminine narrative styles.