By William Renner, Reference Librarian

Speer Memorial Library in Mission invites you to join us on Tuesday, April 6, for a discussion of the book The Joy Luck Club, to take place via Zoom at 5:30 p.m. in Spanish, and at 6:30 p.m. in English. We will send a link for this virtual meeting to all who sign up.

 

For 2021, we are providing an added incentive to participate in our Morton’s Book Club. Speer Memorial Library was the recipient of the Texas Reads Grant and will make free copies available, while supplies last, to people who sign up for our book discussions. This project is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services and Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Set in San Francisco, this novel revolves around the stories of four women, recent immigrants from China, and of their four American-born daughters. In 1949, the four women start meeting together as the Joy Luck Club, playing the Chinese game mah jong, and telling their stories.

The women relate their stories of the past, stories that are often filled with pain and loss, but also with hope for their daughters. As for the daughters, they feel that their mothers’ stories are not relevant to their own lives in the present. But as they go through their own crises, they come to see just how much of their mothers’ pasts they have unwittingly absorbed.

Written by Amy Tan, and first published in 1989, The Joy Luck Club is a story of the deep bonds between mothers and daughters, entwined with the complexities of the past, and of how one’s culture and past cannot be so easily left behind.

For more information, or to sign up for the book discussion, please call our Reference Desk at (956) 580-8754, or send an email to reference@missiontexas.us (please include your name, telephone number, and how you heard about the book discussion). We will send a link for the meeting to all who sign up.

Speer Memorial Library is located at 12th and Kika De La Garza in Mission. Our library is currently closed to the public, due to COVID-19 prevention measures, but we are doing curbside service (except for Holidays) Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. The Library's homepage can be accessed for information via the Internet by entering www.mission.lib.tx.us. Stay up to date with the latest events going on at our neighborhood library by joining our FACEBOOK page at www.facebook.com/speermemoriallibrary.

 

Photo Courtesy Facebook Amy Tan