Princeton Library Lounge

Amy Tan was born in Oakland, California in 1952, several years after her mother and father immigrated to the San Francisco Bay area from China. When she was eight, her essay, "What the Library Means to Me," won first prize among elementary school participants, for which Tan received a transistor radio and publication in the local newspaper. Upon the deaths of her brother and father in 1967 and 1968 from brain tumors, the family began a haphazard journey through Europe, before settling in Montreux, Switzerland, where Tan graduated in her junior year in 1969.

Considered one of the finest writers of our time, Ford is perhaps best known for his Frank Bascombe series of novels, The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land. Set in Haddam, New Jersey, a fictional town that bears more than a passing resemblance to Princeton, the novels have won critical praise; Independence Day, was the first novel ever to win both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Ford is also the author of several short story collections, including Rock Springs, Women With Men and A Multitude of Sins and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times and The New Yorker. Ford's other honors include the Award for Merit in the Novel of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, and from France, the Ordre des Artes et des Lettres. His novels and stories have been translated into 23 languages.
Friday, Nov. 30, 6 p.m.

Tickets for this event, proceeds from which benefit the library, are $25 for the talk; $15 for students and seniors. Benefactor and Patron tickets, which include preferred seating at the talk, along with dinner and an auction at the library following the talk, are $250 and $150, respectively. For more information or to order, call the Friends of the Princeton Public Library at 609.924.9529, ext. 280.
(Nassau Presbyterian Church, 61 Nassau St.)