SAVING FISH FROM DROWNING

Tan's brilliant and magical book illuminates relationships of all kinds--as well as provides glimpses into such disparate locales as No Name Place, Burma, and the Asian Arts Museum in San Francisco. BiBi Chen, doyenne of Asian culture, is supposed to lead a group of friends through the antiquities of Southern China and Myanmar, but she is murdered. She decides to travel with them anyway--in spirit--and becomes the omnipresent transcultural narrator. Amy Tan provides a marvelous voice for BiBi, but she has a terrible time with Harry, the dog trainer, whose English accent slides from Oxford to Australia to the mid-Atlantic. Rich in characters, description, and ideas, the novel propels the listener along its myriad complaints and catastrophes. B.H.B. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 06]