THE JOY LUCK CLUB by Amy Tan...

THE JOY LUCK CLUB

by Amy Tan (G.P. Putnam’s Sons: $18.95; 277 pp.) “This stunningly devotional tour de force” provides “an entrance into the lives of four women whose ‘real’ life occurred in China, in another world; and the lives of four of their daughters. Powerful, full of magic.”

--Carolyn See

IRVING BERLIN & RAGTIME AMERICA

by Ian Whitcomb (Limelight Editions, New York : $18.95; 219 pp.) “Whitcomb tells the tale of ragtime in a kind of syncopated patter, a verbal jazz riff. Irving Berlin and ragtime are nothing less than an anodyne for the painful encounters with modern times.”--Jonathan Kirsch