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Amy Tan Books In Order

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Publication Order of Standalone Novels

The Joy Luck Club (1989)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Kitchen God's Wife (1991)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Hundred Secret Senses (1995)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Bonesetter's Daughter (2001)Description / Buy at Amazon
Saving Fish from Drowning (2005)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Valley of Amazement (2013)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Rules for Virgins (2012)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Children's Books

The Moon Lady (1992)Description / Buy at Amazon
Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat (1994)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings (2003)Description / Buy at Amazon
Post Pregnancy Diet (2015)Description / Buy at Amazon
Where The Past Begins: A Writers Memoir (2017)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Backyard Bird Chronicles (2024)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Big City Cool: Short Stories About Urban Youth (With: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.,Walter Dean Myers,Judith Ortiz Cofer,Neal Shusterman,Cherylene Lee,M. Jerry Weiss,Helen S. Weiss,Elennora Tate,Eugenia Collier,Paul Many,Michael Rosovsky) (2002)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Anthologies

Points of View(1956)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Short Story: 30 Masterpieces(1992)Description / Buy at Amazon
American Voices(1992)Description / Buy at Amazon
Growing Up Female: Stories By Women Writers From the American Mosaic(1993)Description / Buy at Amazon
Charlie Chan is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction(1993)Description / Buy at Amazon
Mid-life Confidential(1994)Description / Buy at Amazon
Out of the Mold(1997)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Best American Short Stories 1999(1999)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction(1999)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Eloquent Essay(2000)Description / Buy at Amazon
40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology(2000)Description / Buy at Amazon
Big City Cool: Short Stories About Urban Youth(2002)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Little Big Book of California(2005)Description / Buy at Amazon
40 Model Essays(2005)Description / Buy at Amazon
Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction(2007)Description / Buy at Amazon
Rotten English: A Literary Anthology(2007)Description / Buy at Amazon
FIRST WORDS: Earliest Writing from Favorite Contemporary Authors(2009)Description / Buy at Amazon
Selected Shorts: American Classics(2010)Description / Buy at Amazon
Hard Listening: The Greatest Rock Band Ever (of Authors) Tells All(2013)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Boomer List(2014)Description / Buy at Amazon

Amy Tan is one of the noteworthy writers of America who has written a number of popular novels in her writing career. She is particularly famous for focussing on the mother and daughter relationship and exploring it in her novels. Some of her works also depict her experiences as a Chinese-American. The most popular work of author Tan is titled as ‘The Joy Luck Club’, which is popular all over the world and has been translated into as many as 35 foreign languages. It was also adapted into a successful commercial movie and into a play in the year 1993. Throughout her writing career author Tan has written many other successful novels as well as a collection of few nonfiction essays. Most of the novels written by her based on the Literature & Fiction genre. Apart from that. She has even written a couple of children’s books, which have been adapted into a successful animated series and was aired on PBS. Author Amy Tan was born on February 19, 1952 in Oakland, California, United States. She was the 2nd child among her three siblings and was born to the Chinese immigrants named John Tan and Daisy Li. Tan’s father was a Baptist minister and an Electrical Engineer.

When author Tan was just 15 years old, she lost her father and elder brother named Peter, who died because of brain tumors within a period of 8 months. After this, her mother moved her along with her younger brother named John Junior in Switzerland. There, Amy joined the Institut Monte Rosa, located in Montreaux and finished her high school studies. During this time, Tan came to know about her mother’s previous marriage to an abusive man when she used to live in China. She also came to know about her 4 children, who she was forced to leave behind in Shanghai. Author Tan used this personal life story of her mother as the base to write her first novel in the year 1989. The novel, The Joy Luck Club, went on to become a New York Times bestseller after which, author Tan visited China along with her mother and met her 3 half-sisters. Before becoming successful as an author with her first novel, author Tan joined the Linfield College in Oregon for her college studies. She then transferred herself to the San Jose State University, located in California. Tan did so because she had fallen in love with an Italian American man named Lou DeMattei. She met him on a blind date and then got married to him in the year 1974. After receiving her graduation and post-graduation degrees in English & Linguistics from the San Jose State University, author Tan joined the U.C Berkeley and U.C Santa Cruz for obtaining her doctorate Linguistics Studies.

While she was studying in her school days, she used to engage herself in doing a number of odd jobs like bartender, switchboard operator, pizza maker, and carhop. Later, she started her writing career as a freelance business writer and then went on to become a full time writer. Initially, author Tan worked for a few famous companies like the Bank of America, AT&T, Pacific Bell, and IBM. In the year 1998, Amy Tan got contracted with Lyme disease, which ended up misdiagnosed for several years. Due to this, Tan suffers from complications such as epileptic seizures. Author Tan has written about her fight with the disease in a column in The New York Times and went on to start an organization called LymeAid 4 Kids, which works for the children suffering from the Lyme disease and are unable to pay for its treatment. As of today, Tan lives in Sausalito, California along with her husband who works as a tax attorney. The two have designed their house in the form of a tree house with several special features and expect to spend their old age in it. Author Tan is an active member of a band called as the Rock Bottom Remainders, which also has several other popular authors in it. Many of the novels written by author Tan have been translated into movies and plays, including The Joy Luck Club. One of other novels titled The Bonesetter’s Daughter has been made into an opera in the year 2008.

One of the initial novels written by author Amy Tan was titled ‘The Joy Luck Club’. It was published by the Penguin Books publishing house in the year 1989. The plot of this novel revolves around the lives of the main characters named Suyuan Woo, Waverly Jong, June Woo, An-Mei Hsu, Lena St. Clair, Rose Hsu Jordan, Ying-Ying St. Clair, etc. It deals with the stories of 4 mothers, 4 daughters and 4 families, who histories seem to shift through the 4 winds and depends on who is telling the stories. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, 4 Chinese women are depicted as immigrating recently to San Francisco in the year 1949. They begin to meet often, play mahjong, eat dim sum, and talk to each other. They seem to be united in their shared and unspeakable losses and their hopes of making things better once again. The women form a club called as the Joy Luck Club. As a member of the club, they try to indulge in raising their spirits as well as money for their livelihood. They do not let each other sink into their tragedies and believed that despairing for their losses will cause their unbearable sorrows to prolong. After a period of 40 years, the histories of the 4 Chinese women repeats itself in the lives of their daughters. The novel is full of sensitive feelings about the connection between the mothers and daughters. Author Tan was praised for her excellent work in examining the painful and tender feelings in their relationship. She has also shown how a woman tries to unravel her life’s truth which end up getting more tangled. All these factors helped the novel to become extremely successful worldwide.

One of the other novels written by author Amy Tan was published under the title The Bonesetter’s Daughter’. It was released by the Ballantine Books publishing house in the year 2001. The plot of this novel revolves around the lives of the primary characters named Ruth Young, Gao Ling, Bibi Tersayang, and LuLing, and is set in China and San Francisco, California, United States. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Ruth Young is introduced as the daughter of a widowed woman named LuLing. They are described as having a tumultuous relationship and before succumbing to her forgetfulness, LuLing gives some of her writings to Ruth. Those writings make Ruth a new side of LuLing that she was not aware of. The writings reveal that LuLing was born in a remote village situated on a mountain which was ruled by ghosts and traditions. As she grew up, her family endured a curse laid upon one of her relatives known as the ‘Bonesetter’. Soon, her family begins to experience several shocking events after LuLing rejects a marriage proposal from the coffin maker. The shocking events lead up to the modern San Francisco and in the current lives of LuLing and Ruth. As Ruth learns about the truths from the past life of her mother, she begins to change her perception about love, forgiveness, and family.

Book Series In Order » Authors » Amy Tan

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