Amy Tan's Books
Aug.09.2007
Ruth is a self-sufficient woman who makes her living as a ghostwriter for self-help books. She lives with her long-term boyfriend, Art Kamen, and acts as a step-mother to Art’s two teenage daughters, Dory and Fia from a previous marriage. Meanwhile LuLing is showing signs of Dementia, Ruth struggles to juggle her mother’s illness, her job as well as her relationship. As an adult,...
Oct.18.2005
On an ill-fated art expedition into the southern Shan state of Burma, eleven Americans leave their Floating Island Resort for a Christmas-morning tour—and disappear. Through twists of fate, curses, and just plain human error, they find themselves deep in the jungle, where they encounter a tribe awaiting the return of the leader and the mythical book of wisdom that will protect them...
Oct.28.2004
Novelist Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife) presents a nonfiction work sharing her personal philosophy of fate; she also writes about her life and her work.
Sep.01.2001
“Before you go out into the world,” Ming Miao told her five kittens, “you must know the true story of your ancestors.” And so begins the story of Sagwa of China, a mischievous, pearl white kitten. Sagwa lived in the House of the Foolish Magistrate, a greedy man who made up rules that helped only himself. One day, Sagwa fell into an inkwell and accidentally changed one of the...
Oct.29.1999
In choosing this year’s best American short stories, guest editor Amy Tan found herself drawn to fiction that satisfied her appetite for the magic and mystery she once loved as a child, when she was addicted to fairy tales. The result is a vibrant collection in which truth and fantasy coexist in new works by writers such as Rick Bass, Annie Proulx, Lorrie Moore, and Pam Houston, as...
Nov.01.1995
On a rainy afternoon, three sisters wish for the rain to stoop, wish they could play in the puddles, wish for something, anything, to do. So Ying-Ying, their grandmother, tells them a tale from long ago. On the night of the Moon Festival, when Ying-ying was a little girl, she encountered the Moon Lady, who grants the secret wishes of those who ask, and learned from her that the...
Oct.17.1995
Set in San Francisco and in a remote village of southern China, this is a tale of American pragmatism shaken, and soothed, by Chinese ghosts. What proof of love do we seek between mother and daughter, among sisters, lovers, and friends? What are its boundaries and failings? Can love go beyond ‘Until death do us part?’ And if so, which aspects haunt us like regretful ghosts? In 1962...
Jun.17.1991
With the same narrative skills and evocative powers that made her first novel, The Joy Luck Club, a national bestseller, Tan now tells the story of Winnie Louie, an aging Chinese woman unfolding a life’s worth of secrets to her suspicious, Americanized daughter.
Mar.22.1989
After her mother Suyuan’s death, thirty-six year old Jing-mei (June) Woo joins The Joy Luck Club. The club, which Suyuan founded in China during the war, consists of four women playing mah jong, eating good dinners, and gambling. Suyuan created the club as a way to improve the spirits of her friends during wartime. Her first husband died in the war and she was forced to abandon...
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.”
—Amy Tan, The Kitchen God's Wife
About Amy
As a child Amy Tan believed her life was duller than most. She read to escape. Her parents wanted her to be a doctor and a concert pianist. She secretly dreamed of becoming an artist. She began writing fiction when she was 33. Her first short story was...
Connections
Causes Amy Tan Supports
Self Help for the Elderly
Pets Unlimited
Squaw Valley Community of Writers
San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Opera