'Your grandmother is old,' says Mr Li to his daughter. 'She has eaten more salt than you have eaten rice.' Mr Li is cross with his daughter when she does not show respect to her grandmother, but Mr Li himself is not always patient with his old mother. She has lived a long time, and the future holds no promise for her. So she holds on to the past... Bookworms World Stories collect stories written in English from around the world. The stories in this volume are from China, Singapore, and India, and are by writers Ha Jin, Minfong Ho, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.