LuLing Young is now in her 80s, and finally beginning to feel the effects of old age. Trying to hold on to the evaporating past, she begins to write down all that she can remember of her life as a girl in China. Meanwhile, her daughter Ruth, a ghostwriter for authors of self-help books, is losing the ability to speak up for herself in front of the man she lives with. LuLing can only look on, helpless: her prickly relationship with her daughter does not make it easy to discuss such matters.

Three sisters listen to their grandmother recount a mesmerizing childhood memory on a rainy afternoon. The long, complex story, filled with danger and excitement, relates what happened when Ying-ying was seven and celebrating the Moon Festival in China. On that long-ago night of the Moon Festival, she encountered the Moon Lady, who grants the secret wishes of those who ask.

In 1949, four Chinese women drawn together by the shadow of their past begin meeting in San Francisco to play Mah Jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and "say" stories. Nearly 40 years later, one of the members has died, and her daughter has come to take her place, only to learn of her mother's lifelong wish and the tragic way in which it has come true. The revelation of this secret unleashes an urgent need among the women to reach back and remember.

Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China - dubbed the true Shangri-La - and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers.

Set in contemporary San Francisco and in a Chinese village where Peking Man is being unearthed, The Bonesetter's Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes. Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, brilliantly presents "storytelling in its oldest and truest form".

Ghosts have haunted Olivia ever since her half-sister Kwan told her stories of the frightening World of Yin. At 5, Olivia tried to purge the images of Yin's bandit maidens, missionaries, and mercenaries, but instead committed a betrayal with long-lasting consequences. At 40 she is still wearily enduring advice from Kwan and her ghosts, who now visit the world of the living in the bizarre form of marriage counselors and amateur restaurant reviewers. Olivia travels to China, to the mountain village of Kwan's childhood, where another betrayal occurred more than 100 years before. As Olivia tries to reconcile the ghosts of her past with hopes for ...

Four Chinese women, drawn together by the shadow of their past, meet in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and to "say" stories to each other. Nearly 40 years later, one of the women has died, and her daughter arrives to take her place. However, the daughter never expected to learn of her mother's secret lifelong wish - and the tragic way in which it has come true. The revelation creates among the women an urgent need to remember the past. What is lost between generations and among friends - and what is salvaged - resonates throughout this novel of friendship among women and the relations between mothers and daught ...

Winnie Louie and Helen Kwong have always shared secrets, but now Helen wants to reveal them. Helen is convinced she is dying and decides to celebrate what might be her last Chinese New Year by telling all the secrets of her life, as well as Winnie Louie's and those of Winnie's daughter Pearl. There are some things, however, that Pearl would rather her mother didn't know. The result of Helen's tell-all mood is a series of comic misunderstandings and heartbreaking realizations about luck, loss, and trust. In this funny and touching novel Amy Tan reveals important truths about the effect of secrets kept and revealed, and the miraculous, resilien ...

Most kids write stories. Only a few of them grow up to be successful authors. But before there was Carrie, there was Jhonathan and the Witchs. And before there was Rabbit Angstrom, Toyota Dealer, there was Manuel Cirarro, famous detective. Could we have seen the seeds of success in Stephen King's and John Updike's juvenilia? A funny and surprisingly informative gathering of childhood creations by today's most celebrated writers.