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  • Published: 23 July 2014
  • ISBN: 9780143124849
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $55.00

The Joy Luck Club: Penguin Drop Caps



T is for Tan. 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.

From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers—featuring cover art by Jessica Hische.

It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an 'A' for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a 'B' for Charlotte Brönte's Jane Eyre, and a 'C' for Willa Cather's My Ántonia. It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves.

In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, gather to play mah jong, remember the past, and gossip into the night.  United in unspeakable loss and new hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club.  With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, memories that reveal these women's strength, worries, and determination, which their American-born daughters reject as irrelevant.  The daughters, in turn, recall pivotal moments of their own past.  They believe their mother's expectations have stymied their ability to face the uncertainties of the future.  We see how the inheritance of pain and unsaid secrets have led to misunderstanding and yet how love can still undo the damage and provide reconciliation.

  • Published: 23 July 2014
  • ISBN: 9780143124849
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $55.00

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About the author

Amy Tan

Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California in 1952, two and a half years after her parents emigrated to the US. Though her parents hoped she would become a neurosurgeon by trade and a concert pianist by hobby, instead she became an administrator of programmes for disabled children and later a reporter and editor. She visited China for the first time in 1987 and found it was just how her mother had said: 'As soon as my feet touched China, I became Chinese.' Amy Tan lives in San Francisco with her husband.

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