Delightful. A literary memory box containing all sorts of tantalizing odds and ends. This collage or mosaic of bright shards has an immediacy and freshness of spirit.

Amy Tan's fiction has always been informed by her experiences and her heritage. Now, in this remarkably candid insight into her life, Tan turns, for the first time, to non-fiction. She takes us on a journey from her childhood, as a sensitive but intelligent young Chinese American, ashamed of her parents' Chinese ways, to the present day and her position as one of the world's best-loved and bestselling novelists.

A Note to the Reader

FATE  AND  FAITH

The CliffsNotes Version of My Life

How We Knew

A Question of Fate

Faith

CHANGING THE PAST

Last Week

My Grandmother's Choice

Thinly Disguised Memoir

Persona Errata

Scent

AMERICAN CIRCUMSTANCES AND CHINESE CHARACTER

Fish Cheeks

Dangerous Advice

Midlife Confidential

Arrival Banquet

Joy Luck and Hollywood

STRONG WINDS,STRONG  INFLUENCES

What She Meant

Confessions

Pretty Beyond Belief

The Most Hateful Words

My Love Affair with Vladimir Nabokov

LUCK, CHANCE,AND A CHARMED LIFE

Inferior Decorating

Room with a View, New Kitchen, and Ghosts

Retreat to Reality

My Hair, My Face, My Nails

The Ghosts of My Imagination

A CHOICE OF WORDS

  What the Library Means to Me

  Mother Tongue

  The Language of Discretion

  Five Writing Tips

  Required Reading and Other Dangerous Subjects

  Angst and the Second Book

  The Best Stories

HOPE

What I Would Remember

To Complain Is American

The Opposite of Fate