Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club is itself a joyful study in luck. An intricately patterned novel whose author thought she was writing a short-story collection, it is also a mother-daughter saga by a writer whose own mother wanted her to be anything but a writer.
Published in 1989 by an unknown first-time writer, The Joy Luck Club became a reviewers' darling and then an international best seller. The novel tells the story of new waves of immigrants who are changing and enriching America.
The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in American popular culture. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 NEA report, identified a critical decline in reading for pleasure among American adults. The Big Read addresses this issue by bringing communities together to read, discuss, and celebrate books and writers from American and world literature.
A great book combines enlightenment with enchantment. It awakens our imagination and enlarges our humanity. It can even offer harrowing insights that somehow console and comfort us. Whether you're a regular reader already or making up for lost time, thank you for joining The Big Read.
Amy Tan, 2003 (Copyright Robert Foothorap)
San Francisco's Chinatown, 1945 (Bettmann/Corbis)
8-year-old Amy Tan wins essay contest, Santa Rosa, CA, 1960 (Courtesy of Amy Tan)
