Product Description
This novel describes the lives of four Asian women who fled China in the 1940s and their contentious relationships with their four very Americanized daughters. It is a moving testament of the differences in generation and culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

The Game Of Friendship
The four winds may change direction, and histories may shift at any given moment, but Amy Tan's, `The Joy Luck Club' remains a captivating tale about four mothers and their four daughters.
The Chinese game Mah-jong works to join the mother's together as they form the club and share the secrets and tragedies of their lives as well as their hopes and dreams for their daughters. The women in this novel struggle to bestow their daughters with the virtues of Chinese traditions and at points seem to go too far-pitting their daughters against each other and sadly living their lives through them.
Tan writes both honestly and sensitively examining the generation gap between mothers and their daughters as well as the struggles migrants face when joining other countries. `The Joy Luck Club' belongs to a genre which can only be described as realistic with characters which are both three dimensional and relatable.
The story is written through defined chapters-each dedicated to either a mother or a daughter; as they weave their histories and spin their stories.
The novel, through this chapter fragmentation allows each character to develop, with an emphasis on the main narrative- the death of one of the members of the club. The death of Suyuan Woo results in the incorporation of her daughter Jung Mei `June' Woo into the group. June realises her mother- who died suddenly of a cerebral aneurysm - had unfinished business which leads June to face one of the biggest tragedies in her mother's life. `The Joy Luck Club' is an inspiring novel which is moving both moving and courageous-a definite pleasure to read.

OnE oF Da BeSt BoOkS!
As I wAs ReAdInG tHiS bOoK, I rEaLiZeD hOw MuCh I wAs GeTtInG iNtO iT...iT's AlMoSt As If YoU aRe ThErE eXpErIeNcInG wHaT tHeY wErE.I sTaRtEd ThInKiNg AbOuT mY gRaNdMa WhO wAs AlSo In A wAr, aNd It ReAlLy GoT mE tHiNkInG...So, I wOuLd ReCoMmEnD tHiS bOoK tO eVeRyOnE...

I Loved This Book!
I had to read this book for school this year and I was one of the only people in the class that really enjoyed it.It is hard to understand the different stories, but if you just take out a piece of paper and chart what is happening with each person, you can really enjoy the book without becoming confused.DON'T BUY THE CLIFFS NOTES becuase you really won't get the experience that you would with the real book!Just take some effort and read the book, and take time to chart the stories and I guarantee that you will LOVE it as well!

Very good book for minority women
Although the book was somewhat confusing to follow, the excellent stories and the manner in which they were told were very real.I really enjoyed relating to each character because I too am a minority woman and I know howimportant it is to hold on to tradition, yet learn new ways of living.Irecommend this book to any woman who is curious about the Chinese-Americanwoman.

Great insight into human nature, yet often overly confusing
The Joy Luck Club has its moments of excellent drama, where you become so entranced in its interpretation of human nature that you almost can't put it down. However, Amy Tan could have excluded some of the characters.Although they all complimented the novel in different ways, theyessentially provided the same theme, and only made the book very confusingto follow. I had to go over the chapters several times and I even rentedthe movie before I was finally able to envision the novel as a whole. I amnot one who can concentrate very well with such in-depth books, and I onlyrecommend it for those people. Too bad, though, it was an excellent conceptoverall. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A wonderful book
This if the best book i have ever read. This book is very realistic. There is also a video on this book. You have to read this book. ... Read more

Product Description
This one-of-a-kind collection reminds weary adults not to lose sight of the values and virtues they learned as kids. Here are over three hundred quotations from over two hundred well-loved children's books, such as Charlotte's Web, Peter Pan, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Eloise, Sounder, Number the Stars, and Goodnight Moon, organized by topic, among them Acceptance, Goodness, Family Woes, and Growing Old. On Silence: "I assure you that you can pick up more information when you are listening than when you are talking."--E. B.White, The Trumpet of the Swan. On Reverence: "Dying's part of the wheel, right there next to being born. . . . Being part of the whole thing, that's the blessing."--Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting.

With clever illustrations from Pierre Le-Tan, here is a book to share with a friend or keep by your own bedside. It's the perfect gift for your sister, your mother, your brother, your nephew, your kid's teacher, your daughter away at college, your son in the Navy, your mailman, your priest, for the old lady next door, or for the baby just born. Most importantly, give it to yourself. It will help you remember why you loved reading in the first place. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

A Helpful Tool for Teachers
This little book is packed full of great writing prompts and ice-breakers (for middle school students) to use each day for teaching.Of course, it is also a dynamite resource for concepts to teach and knowing the book to pull that goes with what you're teaching.I absolutely love it.In fact, I bought it for a friend for Christmas and kept it for myself once I looked through it.I have plans to order another one for her because I know I will keep this one for a lifetime.Well worth the purchase.Now I am hoping there will become a series (hint, hint).

Thoughtful quotes from children's books
I was cruising one night and took a far left turn into Never-Never ZooLand and ended up with this little book--"What the Dormouse Said: Lessons for Grown-ups from Children's Books." Being a librarian and loving children's books as I do, I thought I could find some lasting use for these little quotes.

I was mistaken. I'm not enthralled. Only a few quotes grab me by the collar or timidly touch my lapels. There are a few golden goodies, but most of the quotations come from books unknown to me. Be that as it may, I found the index and discovered the incredible range of books from which deluctible morsels were taken. Here are some of those quotes:

"Front yards are boring,
Backyards tell stories."
"Backyards," Popcorn, James Stevenson, 1998.

"A lion in a zoo,
Shut up in a cage,
Lives a life
Of smothered rage."
The Sweet and Sour Animal Book, Langston Hughes, 1994.

"Fate has decreed that all lazy boys who come to hate books and school and teachers and spend all their days with toys and games must sooner or later turn into donkeys."
The Adventures of Pinocchio, C. Collodi, 1883.

"Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom."
The Trumpet of the Swan, E.B. White, 1970.

"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential is invisible to the eye."
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, 1943.

"One doesn't contradict a hungry tiger!
My Father's Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett, 1948.

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose."
Oh, the Places You Will Go, Dr. Seuss, 1990.

The quotes are organized by topic and include Faith and Courage, Defiance, Animals, Family Woes, Sadness, Goodness, Songs and Stories, Silence, Growing Old, among others.

This little book will serve its purpose at some time or another. I could always quote the author, Amy Gash: "I'm convinced that children's book authors are often the neglected giants of literature." We definitely both agree on that!

Universal Truths for Readers of All Ages
Children's books are often dismissed as a lesser form of literature when compared to books aimed at adult audiences. However, children's literature often contains universal truths that can benefit readers of all ages.

What the Dormouse Said: Lessons for Grown-ups from Children's Books, is a charming collection of literary quotations. Amy Gash first became interested in children's books after the birth of her son. She began to seek out good children's books after her son was old enough to request the same story over and over again. This was an act of self-preservation, one to which many parents can relate. Ms. Gash soon found that not only was she reading children's books to her son; she was also reading them for her own enjoyment. Along the way, she was able to glean wisdom for adult living from these tales intended for children.

The book covers subjects such as love and friendship, imagination, wisdom, courage, acceptance, nature, character and individuality, growing old and hidden truths. The quotations are from a wide variety of sources: Charlotte's Web, Mary Poppins, The Water-Babies, Ella Enchanted, The Little Prince, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Goodnight Moon, The Velveteen Rabbit, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Sarah, Plain and Tall; just to name a few. There are wonderful illustrations by Pierre Le-Tan interspersed throughout the book.

I read many of the books quoted in What the Dormouse Said as a child, more of them as an adult, and have discovered many titles that were new to me that I will seek out in the future. It's a delightful book for anyone who enjoys children's literature.

I'd like to close my review by sharing some of my favorite quotations from What the Dormouse Said with you:

"Each thing she learned became part of herself, to be used over and over in new adventures." -Gypsy, Kate Seredy

"Grownups sure do a lot of pretending and call it politeness." -Miss Charity Comes to Stay, Alberta Wilson Constant

"You saved me once, and what is given is always returned. We are in this world to help one another." -The Adventures of Pinocchio, C. Collodi

"The Dormouse sulkily remarked, `If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the story for yourself.'" -Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Heart to soul...good snippets of thoughts.
Yes, you can go back home.Most of these quotes come from books that either I remember reading as a young girl or that I read to my sons when they were growing up.As an adult/grown-up they have an entirely new meaning and perception that is heartrendering at times and at others very up lifting.I liked it and have purchased another to pass along.

treasure this
this is a book to treasure.Ms. Gash has done a remarkable job compiling it.I've purchased this book for at least a dozen of my male friends, and they're not even gay.Don't let this one fall between the cracks.The lessons are inspirational on many levels; Gash's selections, geared to adults, from the greatest children's books are consistently entertaining and thought-provoking, no small feat in these crazy, meaning-challenged times.I can't say enough about this unique, compelling book, unless I already have. ... Read more

Product Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Short Stories for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: plot summary; character analysis; author biography; an overview of the story's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Short Stories for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Thomson Gale--and "Short Stories for Students." ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from International Fiction Review, published by International Fiction Association on January 1, 2004. The length of the article is 2733 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Reading Amy Tan's hologram: the Hundred Secret Senses.(Critical Essay)
Author: Benzi Zhang
Publication: International Fiction Review (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2004
Publisher: International Fiction Association
Volume: 31Issue: 1-2Page: 13(6)

Article Type: Critical Essay

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
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 well as in startlingly accomplished stories by new writers. The Best American Short Stories is the only volume that annually offers the finest works chosen by a distinguished best-selling author.Amazon.com Review
A great story gets its hooks into you right from the start; you know you'rein the hands of a good writer when the very first sentence transports youwholly into another world. "Mother preferred Zulu servants." "It must be,Ruth thought, that she was going to die in the spring." "Who would havethought that a war of such proportions would bother to turn in its furyagainst the fools of Chelm?"

The 21 fictions featured in The Best American Short Stories 1999have very little in common--but whether they're about ranchers orcommuters, romantic seekers or New Age pilgrims, what they do share is asense of urgency. In each of them, there's a kind of voice thatannounces its need to be heard. "I'm not a bad guy," pleads the narrator of"The Sun, the Moon, the Stars," and even though he cheats on hisgirlfriend, by the end of Junot Díaz's story you might be tempted to agreeanyway. (Especially considering the charming way he turns Melville'sBartleby the Scrivener into a verb--as in, "A lot of the time she Bartlebysme, says, 'No, I'd rather not.'") "Real Estate," by that master ofbittersweet comedy Lorrie Moore, starts by repeating "Ha! Ha! Ha!" for twosolid pages but becomes a rueful take on marriage, house-hunting, and evendeath: "The body, hauling sadnesses, pursued the soul, hobbled after. Thebody was like a sweet dim dog trotting lamely toward the gate as you triedslowly to drive off, out the long driveway. Take me, take me too,barked the dog."

Other standouts in this collection include Alice Munro's "Save the Reaper,"a kind of "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" where no one is killed orsaved; Rick Bass's haunting evocation of winter in the north country, "TheHermit's Story"; and Tim Gautreax's "The Piano Tuner," about a manic-depressive Creole princess playing cocktail piano in a motel lounge. (Thisis one tale that truly does end with a bang, not a whimper.) Takentogether, they are ample evidence that the American short story is alive,well, and eminently able to--in the words of guest editor Amy Tan--"help uslive interesting lives." --Chloe Byrne ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Both Wheat and Chaff....
It's probably not good for the anthology that the piece I most enjoyed was Amy Tan's introduction; I thought that by itself was worth checking the book out. The actual stories left me wanting something more, with the exception of "The Sun, The Moon, The Stars" by Junot Diaz, "Real Estate" by Lorrie Moore, "The 5:22" by George Harrar, and an honorable mention to Heidi Julavits' "Marry the One Who Gets There First". These stories all combined great writing with great insight, all in the framework of good narrative flow. The others--and I confess to not reading several--lacked something. Annie Proulx's piece sucked me in, and had vivid, sparkling dialogue and great writing. However, it failed to deliver on story. When I came to the end, enchanted by all the previous elements, I felt cheated and angry at it's sloppy conclusion. Even Stephen Dobyns' "Kansas" left me flat, and Dobyns never fails to impress me. Overall, this is a good collection, just not a great one by any means.

Black sheep of the family
Every year I anxiously look forward to the arrival of the newest addition to my favorite book series, and every year my patience is rewarded and my appetite for a wonderful collection of short stories is entirely satisfied... that is until this 1999 edition of The Best American Short Stories. The compilation of short stories selected by Amy Tan this year has sadly disappointed me. Furthermore, my disappointment is escalated when one must consider the fact that Amy Tan is among my favorite authors. The combination of my favorite book series and one of my favorite author would presumingly produce a definite great edition yet sometimes the surest things are the most unforeseen.

The Best American Short Stories has always been a reliable and constant supplier of great contemporary work and uniquely distinctive tales. Stories that are far from typical but pleasantly uncanny and sometimes pleasingly bizarre. Stories that do not have a simple introduction, climax, and then resolution but stories that create their own course. Stories that you find yourself still thinking about days later in the shower, still trying to understand what exactly you comprehended. Yet instead what I found was a pretty traditional and conventional assortment of stories. I am not saying that these stories are particularly bad stories because they are not, it is just the straightforward fact that they are not as daring or come near to being as refreshing as their predecessors. I found many of her selections boringly light even when dealing with subject matters that are all but light. They tell their story and that is all. Everything felt so laid out and revealed that there was no room for analyzing or dissecting. Many of the stories were exactly as what appeared and nothing else, nothing left underneath to discover. They reminded me of the stories the entire class would read as one in the eighth grade and everyone wouldreach the same obvious conclusion of what the moral and purpose of the story was as the teacher nods her head to provide assurance.

There is still a couple of decent stories in this entire book (such as Pam Huston's The Best Girlfriend You Never Had) that renders the two stars given but in no way is that an endorsement to spend your money on two short stories. Instead, I recommend you simply visit you nearest bookstore, lean against a bookshelf and spend 15 minutes reading those two stories. Once you are done, place that book back on the self because that is where it belongs. I never thought I would be saying that about a book from this series but hopefully this is the first and last time I will have to. And hopefully this is just the black sheep in this family of over-achievers.

P.S.
In the end, I simply realized that perhaps a great novel writer should stick to novels and not picking short stories.

Did I miss something?
I am a big fan of the Best American Short Stories series, but this one was a huge diappointment.I like stories that have some meat;they should resonate with depth a long time after being read.This collection offers few such stories.Then again, I wasn't expecting much more from Amy Tan.Try '98 or '00 instead.

A fine collection
I found this to be an excellent, thoughtfully assembled collection of stories.I must especially disagree with the reviewer who felt that having a b writer like Pam Houston in a collection with Rick Bass ammounts to a literary injustice.Quite to the contrary, Houston's story is the best in the book and bears re-reading.(And, if you've checked out John Updike's Best Short Stories of the Century, you'll note that her story was one of the few tales from the nineties to be included.)This is a slow, collection, certainly, which may turn off some readers.But I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

A diverse collection of voices and stories
Amy Tan has done a good job selecting 1999's batch of stories for"Best American Short Stories"; I've read better volumes, but I'vealso read worse.My favorite story was Tim Gautreaux's "The PianoTuner," a hilarious, unnerving tale about the advantages anddisadvanages of "fine-tuning" another person's character throughthe use of drugs or other modern methods.The next-best story, in myopinion, was Chitra Divakaruni's delightful and wistful "Mrs. DuttaWrites a Letter," another story about trying to change one's characterin order to fit in with difficult surroundings, and the limits on one'sability to do so.Finally, my third-favorite selection was Rick Bass's"The Hermit's Story," a tale of rugged individualism and survivalin a winter setting that ends with a wonderful image involving fire and afrozen lake, an image I won't spoil for you here.

This volume iscertainly the most diverse edition of the series so far in terms of itsauthors' racial and cultural backgrounds--at least a third of the storiesare by non-white authors or have non-white main characters.As Amy Tannotes, however, what matters more than racial or cultural diversity isdiversity of voice and experience.I found more in common, for example,between "The Piano Tuner" and "Mrs. Dutta Writes aLetter," in both stories' focus on the theme of changing one'scharacter and learning to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings, than I didbetween "The Piano Tuner" and, say, Annie Proulx's moreimpressionistic "The Bunchgrass Edge of the World" (another storyabout rural Americans); or between "Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter"and Jhumpa Lahiri's ominous "The Interpreter of Maladies"(another story about Indian families).In any event, this year's editionprovides plenty of diversity of both background and voice, and is a solidaddition to the "Best American Short Stories" series. ... Read more

Product Description
En 1949, cuatro mujeres chinas emigradas a San Francisco se reunen regularmente para comer dim sum,jugar al mah-jong y hablar. Unidas por sentimientos de perdida y esperanza, se hacen llamar El Club de laBuena Estrella. Amy Tan explora la conexion entre las protagonistas y sus hijas, ya nacidas en Estados Unidos, un mundo totalmente distinto al suyo. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

It's in Spanish!
What did you think the book was?The title is in Spanish!!

Spanish translation of Joy Luck Club
I don't know why the Amazon website doesn't state that this is a Spanish translation of The Joy Luck Club.I was going to order it, thinking that it was a new book from Amy Tan.Thank goodness I googled the title and found out it's actually not a new book.In any case, I have not read the Spanish translation, so I can't speak to the quality of it, but I really enjoyed the original English version. ... Read more

Product Description

Term paper due tomorrow? Need to cram for a test? Or just looking for the best information about a favorite literary work?

Turn to "Short Stories for Students" to get your research done in record time. Brought to you by Thomson Gale--the world's leading source of literary criticism and analysis--this e-doc contains: author biography; plot summary; character analysis; an overview of the story's themes, style, and historical context; a compendium of in-depth critical material; study questions; suggestions for further reading; and much more.

Why choose "Short Stories for Students"? Because no other source offers so much in such a compact package. Trust the experts: Thomson Gale--and "Short Stories for Students." ... Read more

Product Description
Word count: 4266. ... Read more