The title "A Collection of Beauties at the Height of Their Popularity" is taken from a series of woodblock prints by the eighteenth-century artist Utamaro, a master at depicting Japan's legendary Floating World, where, it is said, the patrons of the great pleasure quarters-and their escorts-devoted themselves to the pursuit of music, sex, food, poetry, theater, and fashion. Now, two hundred years later and an ocean away, the young men and women of...

As Kiki approaches her fortieth birthday, she finds that her work as a fact-finder/categorizer for a TV game show provides her with the answers, but she must ask the right questions to avoid disappearing completely in her own life.

A young woman visits her grandmother one summer to think over a marriage proposal, and the women in a quilting bee confide to her the stories of the loves that have shaped their lives.