Amy Tan Books in Order

Four Chinese immigrant mothers in San Francisco gather for mahjong and stories, while their American-born daughters struggle to understand them. Interlocking narratives reveal loss, loyalty, and the pull between Chinese roots and American lives across two generations.

Pearl Louie thinks she knows her formidable mother, Winnie, until a family gathering forces Winnie to reveal the hidden story of her first marriage and wartime life in China. Past and present collide in a portrait of survival, secrets, and mother–daughter love.

Edited by Sally Arteseros, this collection brings together contemporary American short fiction by writers including Amy Tan, Raymond Carver, Sandra Cisneros, and John Sayles. The selections explore varied emotional territory, from coming-of-age experiences to love and loss.

On a rainy afternoon, three sisters grow restless until their grandmother Ying-ying tells a tale from her own childhood at the Moon Festival. Her encounter with the Moon Lady shows that some wishes come true only when you help make them happen.

Beverly Lawn’s anthology presents thirty influential short stories by writers from Hawthorne and Poe to Borges and García Márquez. Designed as a broad survey of the form, it pairs canonical American and international works across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Edited by Jessica Hagedorn, this wide-ranging anthology collects short stories and novel excerpts by Asian American writers. Its selections span different communities, generations, settings, and styles, presenting lives shaped by family, migration, desire, work, conflict, and cultural inheritance.

Susan Cahill’s anthology gathers fiction and autobiographical pieces about girlhood and adolescence in America. More than twenty women writers from varied cultural and class backgrounds portray young women confronting family, identity, expectations, and the passage toward adulthood.

A collaborative tour chronicle by the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band of prominent writers who temporarily exchanged desks for stages. Anecdotes from the members and photographs by Tabitha King recount their first American rock-and-roll tour, its mishaps, friendships, and performances.

In a folktale-style adventure, mischievous kitten Sagwa lives in the house of a foolish magistrate, where cats write his strict rules with ink-dipped tails. One inky accident changes a decree and, with it, the fate of the people—and of Chinese cats.

Olivia, a modern Chinese American woman, is exasperated by her older half sister Kwan, who insists she can see ghosts and remember past lives. A journey to rural China forces them to confront shared history, marriage troubles, and the meanings of loyalty and identity.

This 1997 anthology from the American Booksellers Association presents independent voices in writing and bookselling culture. It includes Amy Tan’s piece “Required Reading and Other Dangerous Subjects” alongside other contributions gathered under the theme of breaking out of established molds.

This volume in the long-running series gathers notable American short fiction first published in 1998. Guest editor Amy Tan and series editor Katrina Kenison select diverse stories that showcase different voices, regions, and approaches to the contemporary short story.

Edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone, this anthology presents fifty North American short stories written since 1970. Drawn from recommendations by more than five hundred professors, fiction writers, and novelists, the selections emphasize stylistic and cultural breadth.

Edited by Beverly Lawn, this compact teaching anthology assembles forty classic and contemporary short stories. Arranged to support the study of fiction, it pairs a broad range of authors with biographical notes and reference material; Amy Tan and Haruki Murakami are among the contributors.

Edited by John Loughery, this chronological anthology presents seventeen twentieth-century examples of classic and creative nonfiction. It ranges across arguments, personal narratives, open letters, anecdotes, and other essay forms, with work by writers including Orwell, Didion, King, Tan, Kingsolver, and Sagan.

Ruth, a Chinese American ghostwriter in San Francisco, is slowly losing her fiercely opinionated mother, LuLing, to memory loss. Translating LuLing’s memoir uncovers a haunted childhood in rural China and family secrets that reshape Ruth’s understanding of love, duty, and herself.

This young adult anthology gathers fourteen short stories about teens navigating life in big cities across the United States. Writers including Amy Tan, Walter Dean Myers, and others explore friendships, family tensions, danger, and small moments of grace on crowded streets.

In this collection of autobiographical essays, Amy Tan reflects on her family history, writing life, health struggles, and the unexpected turns that shaped her. Personal stories behind her novels sit alongside meditations on superstition, fate, and choosing your own path.

A compact composition reader designed around forty model essays, this volume pairs sample nonfiction with guidance on rhetorical methods of development. Drawn in part from The Compact Reader, it offers students a shorter anthology for studying how essays are structured and argued.

After art patron Bibi Chen dies, her ghost narrates the trip she planned for eleven American tourists through China and Burma. When the group strays into remote territory, they’re swept into local myths and politics, with darkly comic misunderstandings on every side.

Edited by Natasha Tabori Fried, this California-themed miscellany combines literary excerpts, poems, quotations, songs, historical facts, legends, recipes, and vintage imagery. Amy Tan appears among the featured literary voices in a volume celebrating the state’s places, history, culture, and myths.

Edited by Dohra Ahmad, this global anthology brings together poetry, fiction, essays, and novel excerpts written in vernacular English. Spanning two centuries and many regions, it examines slang, creole, patois, and other nonstandard Englishes as literary languages.

Edited by Lex Williford and Michael Martone, this anthology surveys creative nonfiction published from 1970 onward. Fifty writers contribute memoir, reportage, personal essays, and cultural criticism, including David Sedaris, Barbara Kingsolver, Amy Tan, Cheryl Strayed, and John McPhee.

Collected and edited by Paul Mandelbaum, this literary anthology shares childhood and early writing by accomplished contemporary authors, including Amy Tan. The selections, accompanied by photographs and commentary, offer a glimpse of writers experimenting with ideas and voices before their careers began.

Set in 1912 Shanghai, this long story is framed as the advice of Magic Gourd, a retired courtesan coaching her young protégé, Violet, before her debut. Her sharp “rules” reveal a world of performance, desire, and survival behind glittering courtesan culture.

Members of the Rock Bottom Remainders, a band made up of bestselling authors, look back on two decades of performing together. Essays, fiction, emails, conversations, photographs, and interactive features trace the group’s music, friendships, writing lives, and charitable touring.

In early‑1900s Shanghai, Violet, a biracial girl raised in an elite courtesan house, is separated from her American mother and forced to become a courtesan herself. Decades later, mother and daughter struggle to reclaim each other across continents, betrayals, and shifting identities.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders profiles nineteen notable baby boomers, one born in each year from 1946 through 1964. Through portraiture and interviews, the book considers their personal histories alongside the social movements, cultural shifts, and public debates that shaped their generation.

Written as a guide for new mothers, this book focuses on gentle, nutrient‑rich eating in the weeks after birth. It offers simple recipes, advice on supporting recovery and breastfeeding, and cautions against crash dieting while your body heals and energy slowly returns.

Blending family photographs, letters, and notebooks, this memoir traces Amy Tan’s childhood, her parents’ pasts in China, and the inner life of a writer. She explores memory, trauma, creativity, and how private stories evolve into fiction.

Combining nature journal and memoir, this book collects Amy Tan’s sketches, observations, and stories about the wild birds that visit her backyard. Close watching becomes a daily practice of attention, humor, and solace during anxious, divided times.