Download or read book The Hundred Secret Senses written by Amy Tan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-12-28 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "wisest and most captivating novel" (Boston Globe) from the author of the bestselling The Valley of Amazement and the new memoir Where the Past Begins Set in San Francisco and in a remote village of Southwestern China, Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses is a tale of American assumptions shaken by Chinese ghosts and broadened with hope. In 1962, five-year-old Olivia meets the half-sister she never knew existed, eighteen-year-old Kwan from China, who sees ghosts with her "yin eyes." Decades later, Olivia describes her complicated relationship with her sister and her failing marriage, as Kwan reveals her story, sweeping the reader into the splendor and violence of mid-nineteenth century China. With her characteristic wisdom, grace, and humor, Tan conjures up a story of the inheritance of love, its secrets and senses, its illusions and truths.
Download or read book The Hundred Secret Senses written by Amy Tan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1995-10-17 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hundred Secret Senses is an exultant novel about China and America, love and loyalty, the identities we invent and the true selves we discover along the way. Olivia Laguni is half-Chinese, but typically American in her uneasiness with her patchwork family. And no one in Olivia's family is more embarrassing to her than her half-sister, Kwan Li. For Kwan speaks mangled English, is cheerfully deaf to Olivia's sarcasm, and sees the dead with her "yin eyes." Even as Olivia details the particulars of her decades-long grudge against her sister (who, among other things, is a source of infuriatingly good advice), Kwan Li is telling her own story, one that sweeps us into the splendor, squalor, and violence of Manchu China. And out of the friction between her narrators, Amy Tan creates a work that illuminates both the present and the past sweetly, sadly, hilariously, with searing and vivid prose. "Truly magical...unforgettable...this novel...shimmer[s] with meaning."--San Diego Tribune "The Hundred Secret Senses doesn't simply return to a world but burrows more deeply into it, following new trails to fresh revelations."--Newsweek
Download or read book The Bonesetter s Daughter written by Amy Tan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2001-02-19 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mother and daughter find what they share in their bones in this compelling novel from the bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Backyard Bird Chronicles. Ruth Young and her widowed mother have always had a difficult relationship. But when she discovers writings that vividly describe her mother’s tumultuous life growing up in China, Ruth discovers a side of LuLing that she never knew existed. Transported to a backwoods village known as Immortal Heart, Ruth learns of secrets passed along by a mute nursemaid, Precious Auntie; of a cave where dragon bones are mined; of the crumbling ravine known as the End of the World; and of the curse that LuLing believes she released through betrayal. Within the calligraphied pages awaits the truth about a mother's heart, secrets she cannot tell her daughter, yet hopes she will never forget... Conjuring the pain of broken dreams and the power of myths, The Bonesetter’s Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes.
Download or read book The Kitchen God s Wife written by Amy Tan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-09-21 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Remarkable...mesmerizing...compelling.... An entire world unfolds in Tolstoyan tide of event and detail....Give yourself over to the world Ms. Tan creates for you." —The New York Times Book Review Winnie and Helen have kept each other's worst secrets for more than fifty years. Now, because she believes she is dying, Helen wants to expose everything. And Winnie angrily determines that she must be the one to tell her daughter, Pearl, about the past—including the terrible truth even Helen does not know. And so begins Winnie's story of her life on a small island outside Shanghai in the 1920s, and other places in China during World War II, and traces the happy and desperate events that led to Winnie's coming to America in 1949. The Kitchen God's Wife is "a beautiful book" (Los Angeles Times) from the bestselling author of novels like The Joy Luck Club and The Backyard Bird Chronicles, and the memoir, Where the Past Begins.
Download or read book The Joy Luck Club written by Amy Tan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-09-21 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely inspirational.” —Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians Amy Tan’s beloved, New York Times bestselling tale of mothers and daughters, now the focus of a new documentary Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir on Netflix Four mothers, four daughters, four families whose histories shift with the four winds depending on who's "saying" the stories. In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. Rather than sink into tragedy, they choose to gather to raise their spirits and money. "To despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable." Forty years later the stories and history continue. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between mothers and daughters. As each woman reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined. Mothers boast or despair over daughters, and daughters roll their eyes even as they feel the inextricable tightening of their matriarchal ties. Tan is an astute storyteller, enticing readers to immerse themselves into these lives of complexity and mystery.
Download or read book Amy Tan written by E. D. Huntley and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 1998 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to reading and understanding three novels written by Asian American writer Amy Tan that includes information on the characters, narrative strategies, plot development, literary devices, setting, and major themes of each novel.
Download or read book The Opposite of Fate written by Amy Tan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author reflects on her family's Chinese American legacy, her experiences as a writer, her survival of natural disasters, and her struggle to manage three family members afflicted with brain disease.
Download or read book The Hundred Secret Senses written by Amy Tan and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-12-28 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "wisest and most captivating novel" (Boston Globe) from the author of the bestselling The Valley of Amazement and the new memoir Where the Past Begins Set in San Francisco and in a remote village of Southwestern China, Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses is a tale of American assumptions shaken by Chinese ghosts and broadened with hope. In 1962, five-year-old Olivia meets the half-sister she never knew existed, eighteen-year-old Kwan from China, who sees ghosts with her "yin eyes." Decades later, Olivia describes her complicated relationship with her sister and her failing marriage, as Kwan reveals her story, sweeping the reader into the splendor and violence of mid-nineteenth century China. With her characteristic wisdom, grace, and humor, Tan conjures up a story of the inheritance of love, its secrets and senses, its illusions and truths.
Download or read book The Valley of Amazement written by Amy Tan and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement is a sweeping, evocative epic of two women’s intertwined fates and their search for identity, that moves from the lavish parlors of Shanghai courtesans to the fog-shrouded mountains of a remote Chinese village. Spanning more than forty years and two continents, The Valley of Amazement resurrects pivotal episodes in history: from the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty, to the rise of the Republic, the explosive growth of lucrative foreign trade and anti-foreign sentiment, to the inner workings of courtesan houses and the lives of the foreign “Shanghailanders” living in the International Settlement, both erased by World War II. A deeply evocative narrative about the profound connections between mothers and daughters, The Valley of Amazement returns readers to the compelling territory of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. With her characteristic insight and humor, she conjures a story of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and stubbornness of love.
Download or read book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan written by Lisa See and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-10-17 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lily is the daughter of a humble farmer, and to her family she is just another expensive mouth to feed. Then the local matchmaker delivers startling news: if Lily's feet are bound properly, they will be flawless. In nineteenth-century China, where a woman's eligibility is judged by the shape and size of her feet, this is extraordinary good luck. Lily now has the power to make a good marriage and change the fortunes of her family. To prepare for her new life, she must undergo the agonies of footbinding, learn nu shu, the famed secret women's writing, and make a very special friend, Snow Flower. But a bitter reversal of fortune is about to change everything.
Download or read book Yellow Dog written by Martin Amis and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-07-30 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliant, painful, dazzling, and funny as hell, Yellow Dog is Martin Amis’ highly anticipated first novel in seven years and a stunning return to the fictional form. When “dream husband” Xan Meo is vengefully assaulted in the garden of a London pub, he suffers head injury, and personality change. Like a spiritual convert, the familial paragon becomes an anti-husband, an anti-father. He submits to an alien moral system -- one among many to be found in these pages. We are introduced to the inverted worlds of the “yellow” journalist, Clint Smoker; the high priest of hardmen, Joseph Andrews; and the porno tycoon, Cora Susan. Meanwhile, we explore the entanglements of Henry England: his incapacitated wife, Pamela; his Chinese mistress, He Zhezun; his fifteen-year-old daughter, Victoria, the victim of a filmed “intrusion” that rivets the world -- because she is the future Queen of England, and her father, Henry IX, is its King. The connections between these characters provide the pattern and drive of Yellow Dog. If, in the 21st century, the moral reality is changing, then the novel is changing too, whether it likes it or not. Yellow Dog is a model of how the novel, or more particularly the comic novel, can respond to this transformation. But Martin Amis is also concerned here with what is changeless and perhaps unchangeable. Patriarchy, and the entire edifice of masculinity; the enormous category-error of violence, arising between man and man; the tortuous alliances between men and women; and the vanished dream (probably always an illusion, but now a clear delusion) that we can protect our future and our progeny. Meo heard no footsteps; what he heard was the swish, the shingly soft-shoe of the hefted sap. Then the sharp two-finger prod on his shoulder. It wasn’t meant to happen like this. They expected him to turn and he didn’t turn -- he half-turned, then veered and ducked. So the blow intended merely to break his cheekbone or his jawbone was instead received by the cranium, that spacey bulge (in this instance still quite marriageably forested) where so many delicate and important powers are so trustingly encased. He crashed, he crunched to his knees, in obliterating defeat. . . . -- from Yellow Dog
Download or read book Where the Past Begins written by Amy Tan and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Amy Tan, a memoir about finding meaning in life through acts of creativity and imagination. As seen on PBS American Masters "Unintended Memoir." In Where the Past Begins, bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Valley of Amazement Amy Tan reveals the ways that our memories and personal experiences can inform our creative work. Drawing on her vivid impressions of her upbringing, Tan investigates the truths and inspirations behind her writing while illuminating how we all explore, confront, and process complex memories, especially half-forgotten ones from childhood. With candor, empathy, and humor, Tan sheds light on her own writing process, sharing her hard-won insights on the nature of creativity and inspiration while exploring the universal urge to examine truth through the workings of imagination—and what that imaginative world tells us about our own lives. Where the Past Begins is both a unique look into the mind of an extraordinary storyteller and an indispensable guide for writers, artists, and other creative thinkers.
Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
Download or read book Ties That Bind Ties That Break written by Lensey Namioka and published by Laurel Leaf. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Third Sister in the Tao family, Ailin has watched her two older sisters go through the painful process of having their feet bound. In China in 1911, all the women of good families follow this ancient tradition. But Ailin loves to run away from her governess and play games with her male cousins. Knowing she will never run again once her feet are bound, Ailin rebels and refuses to follow this torturous tradition. As a result, however, the family of her intended husband breaks their marriage agreement. And as she enters adolescence, Ailin finds that her family is no longer willing to support her. Chinese society leaves few options for a single woman of good family, but with a bold conviction and an indomitable spirit, Ailin is determined to forge her own destiny. Her story is a tribute to all those women whose courage created new options for the generations who came after them.
Download or read book Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat written by Amy Tan and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 2001-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ming Miao tells her kittens about the antics of one of their ancestors, Sagwa of China, that produced the unusual markings they have had for thousands of years
Download or read book The Little Prince written by Antoine de Saint−Exupery and published by Aegitas. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Little Prince and nbsp;(French: and nbsp;Le Petit Prince) is a and nbsp;novella and nbsp;by French aristocrat, writer, and aviator and nbsp;Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the US by and nbsp;Reynal and amp; Hitchcock and nbsp;in April 1943, and posthumously in France following the and nbsp;liberation of France and nbsp;as Saint-Exupéry's works had been banned by the and nbsp;Vichy Regime. The story follows a young prince who visits various planets in space, including Earth, and addresses themes of loneliness, friendship, love, and loss. Despite its style as a children's book, and nbsp;The Little Prince and nbsp;makes observations about life, adults and human nature. The Little Prince and nbsp;became Saint-Exupéry's most successful work, selling an estimated 140 million copies worldwide, which makes it one of the and nbsp;best-selling and nbsp;and and nbsp;most translated books and nbsp;ever published. and nbsp;It has been translated into 301 languages and dialects. and nbsp;The Little Prince and nbsp;has been adapted to numerous art forms and media, including audio recordings, radio plays, live stage, film, television, ballet, and opera.
Download or read book The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows written by John Koenig and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “It’s undeniably thrilling to find words for our strangest feelings…Koenig casts light into lonely corners of human experience…An enchanting book. “ —The Washington Post A truly original book in every sense of the word, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows poetically defines emotions that we all feel but don’t have the words to express—until now. Have you ever wondered about the lives of each person you pass on the street, realizing that everyone is the main character in their own story, each living a life as vivid and complex as your own? That feeling has a name: “sonder.” Or maybe you’ve watched a thunderstorm roll in and felt a primal hunger for disaster, hoping it would shake up your life. That’s called “lachesism.” Or you were looking through old photos and felt a pang of nostalgia for a time you’ve never actually experienced. That’s “anemoia.” If you’ve never heard of these terms before, that’s because they didn’t exist until John Koenig set out to fill the gaps in our language of emotion. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows “creates beautiful new words that we need but do not yet have,” says John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars. By turns poignant, relatable, and mind-bending, the definitions include whimsical etymologies drawn from languages around the world, interspersed with otherworldly collages and lyrical essays that explore forgotten corners of the human condition—from “astrophe,” the longing to explore beyond the planet Earth, to “zenosyne,” the sense that time keeps getting faster. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is for anyone who enjoys a shift in perspective, pondering the ineffable feelings that make up our lives. With a gorgeous package and beautiful illustrations throughout, this is the perfect gift for creatives, word nerds, and human beings everywhere.
