A novel of the glorious, decadent last days of 19th-Century Imperial China. Min (Red Azalea, Becoming Madame Mao) combines her tale of a young girl from the provinces who marries an emperor -- and then improbably becomes the Last Empress -- with a lovingly re-created portrait of life in the Forbidden City. Pearl Buck told a much more romanticized tale of the same remarkable woman in Imperial Woman.  (CHN267, $14.00)