July 2017 - BookDragon

Favorite Manga Series, Part I: 20th Century Boys through Ultraman [in The Booklist Reader]

28 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Lists, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Favorite Manga Series, Part I: 20th Century Boys through Ultraman Graphic titles are big news. Even if you’re not a pop-culture connoisseur, you can’t have missed the graphic titles regularly popping up on bestseller lists—not to mention their various incarnations on film and even the stage! When...

Refuge by Dina Nayeri [in Christian Science Monitor]

27 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

'Refuge' is the story of an Iranian family in search of home Here’s the seemingly simple narrative frame: A father and daughter are separated and spend the next two decades both avoiding and yearning for reconnection. But Dina Nayeri’s sophomore novel, Refuge, is anything but straightforward,...

Author Interview: Don Lee [in BLOOM]

26 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Japanese American, Korean American, Repost

Q&A with Don Lee: False starts, being radical & letting go of the small stuff More than four years have passed since I chatted with Don Lee for Bloom. The paperback version of his 2012 novel, The Collective, was about to come out. We were talking...

Hello Goodbye Dog by Maria Gianferrari, illustrated by Patrice Barton [in Shelf Awareness]

25 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW "There was nothing Moose loved more than hello," especially greetings from her human, Zara. But dogs aren't allowed at Zara's school and "There was nothing Moose disliked more than goodbye." Smart pup that she is, for every "goodbye," Moose finds a way to say...

Sonora by Hannah Lillith Assadi [in Library Journal]

18 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Palestinian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Debut novelist Hannah Lillith Assadi's protagonist, like the author herself, is the daughter of a Palestinian refugee father and Israeli Jewish mother. Ahlam comes of age in the Arizona desert, physically safe from war but damaged by the bitter fighting between her parents that too...

What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons [in Booklist]

17 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Zinzi Clemmons’ spectacular debut is written in bursts, from single-sentence pages to sparse paragraphs, and combines photographs, diagrams, charts, articles, and blog posts to amplify an intimate story of personal loss into a larger narrative of identity, family, race, and socioeconomic access. Thandi is the...

Once We Were Sisters: A Memoir by Sheila Kohler [in Library Journal]

14 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Sheila Kohler’s crisp, clipped voice is ideal for her memoir, which begins with references to Nelson Mandela, Afrikaners, and various family members that all announce her South African heritage. Although she left her birth country at 17, Kohler (Cracks; Crossways) has retained her clear, concise...

One of the Boys by Daniel Magariel [in Library Journal]

13 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW At just three-and-a-half hours, Daniel Magariel's debut novel should be a quick listen – time-wise, that's obviously true – but be warned: this affecting, hypnotic tragedy will linger and haunt long after. Narrator Gibson Frazier – pitch-perfect in his characterization of the two abused brothers...

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay [in Library Journal]

12 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Experienced narrator Robin Miles is the ideal proxy for Gay's difficult women, many of whom are not so much difficult as living lives that have been made difficult, onerous, or tragic by others. Embodying various ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds, Miles refreshes and adapts her...

This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature, edited by Ahdaf Soueif and Omar Robert Hamilton [in Booklist]

11 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Commemorating 10 extraordinary years of PalFest, the Palestine Festival of Literature, mother-son cofounders Soueif (Cairo: Memoir of a City Transformed, 2014) and Hamilton (The City Always Wins, 2017) gathered 47 literary luminaries to create this essential testimony, including Suad Amiry, J. M. Coetzee, Teju...

Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship by Michelle Kuo [in Christian Science Monitor]

10 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

'Reading with Patrick' tells of a teacher's extraordinary journey Pontificating with superlatives only halfway through the calendar year might prove short-sighted, but risking humiliated inaccuracy seems to be a negligible consequence for claiming that Reading with Patrick could be the most affecting book you’ll read this...

Letters to a Young Muslim by Omar Saif Ghobash [in Library Journal]

07 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Now older than his 43-year-old father was when he died in a 1977 terrorist attack, Omar Saif Ghobash writes his Letters to his two young sons as a matter of permanent record. As the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to Russia (Ghobash's father was Arab, his...

Road Tripping with Eclectic Audiobooks [in The Booklist Reader]

06 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Lists, Repost

Once upon a time, I was wary of audiobooks; I didn't think they were "real" reading. How wrong I was! Two sparked an obsession: Feed by M.T. Anderson, read by David Aaron Baker, with a full production complete with brain-fed ads and instant messages before I even knew...

Ill Will by Dan Chaon [in Library Journal]

03 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

At 15 hours to find out whodunit (you'll probably guess early), howdunit (you'll need to wait for it), whydunit (well…? no spoilers!), we're talking commitment. A full cast (why don't producers reveal who's who?), including veterans Ari Fliakos and Edoardo Ballerini, with Scott Aiello, Michael...

BookDragon July 2017