The Joy Luck Club

This widely acclaimed bestseller spans two countries and two generations, following a group of Chinese women who meet to play mah jong, invest money and tell the secret stories of their lives. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club.

Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California, in 1952, two and a half years after her parents immigrated to the United States. Though her parents anticipated she would become a neurosurgeon by trade and a concert pianist by hobby, she instead became a consultant to programs for disabled children, and later a free-lance writer. She visited China for the first time in 1987 and found it was just as her mother said: "As soon as my feet touched China, I became Chinese." She lives in San Francisco with her husband