Books with author AMY TAN

In memories that rise like wisps of ghosts, LuLing Young searches for the name of her mother, the daughter of the Famous Bonesetter from the Mouth of the Mountain. Trying to hold on to the evaporating past, she begins to write all that she can remember of her life as a girl in China. Meanwhile, her daughter Ruth, a ghost-writer for authors of self-help books, is losing the ability to speak up for herself in front of the man she lives with and his two teenage daughters. None of her professional sound bites and pat homilies works for her personal life; she knows only how to translate what others want to say. Ruth starts suspecting that something is terribly wrong with her mother. As a child, Ruth had been constaantly subjected to her mother's disturbing notions about curses and ghosts, and to her repeated threats that she would kill herself, and was even forced by her to try to communicate with ghosts. But now LuLing seems less argumentative, even happy, far from her usual disagreeable and dissatisfied self. While tending to her ailing mother, Ruth discovers the pages LuLing wrote in Chinese, the story of her tumultuous and star-crossed life, and is transported to a backwoods village known as Immortal Heart. There she learns of secrets passed along by a mute nursemaid. Precious Auntie; of a cave where "dragon bones" are mined, some of which may prove to be the teeth of Peking Man; of the crumbling ravine known as the End of the World; where Precious Auntie's scattered bones lie, and of the curse that LuLing believes she released through betrayal. Like layers of sediment being removed, each page reveals secrets of a larger mystery: What became of Peking Man? What was the name of the Bonesetter's Daughter? And who was Precious Auntie, whose suicide changed the path of LuLing's life? Within LuLing's calligraphed pages awaits the truth about a mother's heart, what she cannot tell her daughter yet hopes she will never forget.

Amy Tan was born into a family that believed in fate. In The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings, she explores this legacy, as well as American circumstances, and finds ways to honor the past while creating her own brand of destiny. She discovers answers in everyday actions and attitudes - from writing stories and decorating her house with charms, to dealing with three members of her family afflicted with brain disease and shaking off both family curses and the expectations that she should become a doctor and a concert pianist. With the same spirit, humor, and magic that characterize her beloved novels, Amy Tan presents a refreshing antidote to the world-weariness and uncertainties we face today, contemplating how things happen - in her own life and beyond - but always returning to the question of fate and its opposites: the choices, charms, influences, attitudes, and lucky accidents that shape us all.

A New York Times Bestselling Author Amy Tan was born into a family that believed in fate. She explores this legacy, as well as American circumstances, and finds ways to honor the past while creating her own brand of destiny. She discovers answers in everyday actions and attitudes -- from writing stories, decorating her house with charms, learning to ski, and living with squirrels, to dealing with the members of her family afflicted with brain disease, surviving natural disasters, and shaking off family curses.

??As compelling as Tan?s first bestseller, The Joy Luck Club. . . No one writes about mothers and daughters with more empathy than Amy Tan.??The Philadelphia Inquirer?[An] absorbing tale of the mother-daughter bond . . . this book sing[s] with emotion and insight.??PeopleRuth Young and her widowed mother, LuLing, have always had a tumultuous relationship. Now, before she succumbs to forgetfulness, LuLing gives Ruth some of her writings, which reveal a side of LuLing that Ruth has never known. . . .In a remote mountain village where ghosts and tradition rule, LuLing grows up in the care of her mute Precious Auntie as the family endures a curse laid upon a relative known as the bonesetter. When headstrong LuLing rejects the marriage proposal of the coffinmaker, a shocking series of events are set in motion?all of which lead back to Ruth and LuLing in modern San Francisco. The truth that Ruth learns from her mother?s past will forever change her perception of family, love, and forgiveness.?A strong novel, filled with idiosyncratic, sympathetic characters; haunting images; historical complexity; significant contemporary themes; and suspenseful mystery.??Los Angeles Times?For Tan, the true keeper of memory is language, and so the novel is layered with stories that have been written down?by mothers for their daughters, passing along secrets that cannot be said out loud but must not be forgotten.??The New York Times Book Review?Tan at her best . . . rich and hauntingly forlorn . . . The writing is so exacting and unique in its detail.??San Francisco Chronicle

"The Truth is," Ming Miao told her five kittens, "you are not Siamese cats but Chinese cats. As a matter of fact, one of our family's ancestors from a thousand cat lives ago was the famous feline Sagwa of China..." One day Sagwa was napping in the Foolish Magistrate's study. From her perch high on a bookshelf, she heard the newest rule: No singing until the sun goes down. A terrible rule, Sagwa thought. After the Foolish Magistrate left the study, Sagwa jumped down from the bookshelf -- pwah! -- and landed right in the ink pot! Sagwa was instantly covered with black ink, and before she knew what she was doing she rubbed her nose on the new rule, blotting out the word not. Now it ordered the people to sing all day -- until the sun went down. When the people heard this new rule, they were thrilled. They raised their voices in song, praising the Foolish Magistrate for thinking of them. And when the Foolish Magistrate heard their praise, his heart warmed. From that day on, he was a wise magistrate. And Sagwa became the greatest of felines! Gretchen Schield's detailed, colorful paintings bring Amy Tan's charming story to wonderful life, making The Chinese Siamese Cat a book to be treasured for generations to come.