This book offers history, mythology, and divination, each in its own section. I was fascinated to learn of Kuan Yin's roots in Buddhist history, the reasons for her transformation from a male bodhisattva to a goddess in China, her links in myth to the Virgin Mary, and her ecumenical appeal to people of Daoist, Confucianist, and Shinto traditions. Of course the book is also testimony to Kuan Yin's rising appeal in the West, which I suspect is a momentous development. As Cristina Leira's great statue in the harbor of Macau melds the West's Virgin Mary with the East's goddess of universal compassion, so a new figure of feminine spirituality may inspire future generations across the world.