SIBookDragon, Author at BookDragon

David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell

27 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Malcolm and I started out great here. We usually do. He's judgmental, opinionated, smart, questioning, and downright entertaining. Outliers remains my all-time Gladwell favorite, then Blink, then Tipping Point. I thought he faltered a bit in his last title, What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures, but those contents weren't...

Mi Familia Calaca | My Skeleton Family by Cynthia Weill, illustrated by Jesús Canseco Zárate

26 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Bilingual, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Nonethnic-specific, Translation

Check out this fabulous overview in today's New York Times highlighting what real American families look like these days: "Families." Be sure to scroll through all the imbedded slide shows – you know what they say about pictures and words. Inspired by all different types of family permutations, the...

One Step at a Time : A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

25 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Biography, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American

Introduced to U.S. readers by award-winning Canadian author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch in last year's Last Airlift: A Vietnamese Orphan’s Rescue from War, Son Thi Ahn Tuyet's story continues – literally one step at a time. Now that Tuyet has a real home with her own real family – Dad, Mom, sisters Beth and...

Review: “an insightful depiction of American life”

25 Nov, by SIBookDragon in BookDragon Book Club

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books: The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, The Prisoner of Heaven, The Rose of Fire by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, translated by Lucia Graves

24 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Translation

Well, crud. In spite of making a list and checking it twice, thrice, and more, I read these in about as 'wrong' order as I possibly could. But before I offer two preventative options, some quick background: the full Cemetery of Forgotten Books by internationally bestselling...

The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

23 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Small-town Maine, where Elizabeth Strout was born and raised, has been home to her four novels. In her first title since she won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for her novel-in-13-stories, Olive Kitteridge, Strout returns to tiny Shirley Falls where she set her acclaimed, chilling debut, Amy and Isabelle. This time, in The Burgess...

Tune | Book 2: Still Life by Derek Kirk Kim and Les McClaine

22 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean American, Young Adult Readers

Okay, so both Book 1 and Book 2 of this intergalactically stupendous series start out almost the same (Book 2 has an extra, well-placed, close-up "Gyaaaaah!" thrown in), but don't be misled into thinking you've already read it, done that, check! "What's next for Andy Go?" the...

Smoke & Pickles: Recipes and Stories from a New Southern Kitchen by Edward Lee

21 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction

In case you haven't planned your Turkey Dinner coming up in exactly a week (who, me? menu? what's that?), here's a collection filled with irreverently toothsome suggestions. Having grown up eating kimchi with every chestnut-stuffed bird or surreally spiraled pink ham (or both), I couldn't...

Serafina’s Promise by Ann E. Burg

20 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Caribbean, Fiction, Haitian, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Poetry, Verse Novel/Nonfiction

Serafina, who lives in the outskirts of Haiti's Port-au-Prince, has never had the chance to go to school. With rarely enough to eat, her family has nothing left over to pay the school fees, much less buy the required uniform. While her father works at...

A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea by Dina Nayeri

19 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American

Before she is even a teenager, Saba Hafezi reveals herself to be quite the unreliable narrator. Telling stories, however, is what will save her youthful soul ...

The Wall by William Sutcliffe

18 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, Fiction, Middle Eastern, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers

In an unnamed conflict zone – not unlike the challenging, changing borders of Israel and Palestine – 13-year-old Joshua lives in a new settlement community, Amarias, surrounded by a guarded, barbed-wired wall. Too soon after his father's violent death, his mother desperately married Joshua's now-stepfather who considers...

Marisol McDonald and the Clash Bash | Marisol McDonald y la fiesta sin igual by Monica Brown, illustrated by Sara Palacios, Spanish translation by Adriana Domínguez

16 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Bilingual, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Latina/o/x, South American

In case you need an introduction to the "unique, different, and one of a kind" Marisol McDonald, check out her 2011 debut here: Marisol McDonald Doesn't Match. Now that she's starring in her second book, I hope that means Marisol's got her own series going, so we...

On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee [in Library Journal]

15 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Once revealed in context, this book's title alone is an astonishing feat of encapsulated genius from the inimitable Chang-rae Lee. Control, individuality, nature, perfection, reality, society – all that and more fill this dystopic treatise about a not-so-futuristic, ruined America. At the beginning, 16-year-old Fan simply...

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang

14 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Lan Samantha Chang is a literary success of countless accolades, from her Ivy pedigrees (Yale, Harvard) to coveted fellowships (Guggenheim, Stanford's Stegner, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) to her directorship since 2006 of what many believe is the country's (the world's?) top creative writing program,...

Paris Was the Place by Susan Conley

13 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, South Asian

In Susan Conley's debut novel defined by deep relationships, the most intriguing alliances get neglected and overlooked for the more commonplace and predictable. Willow – called Willie – moves to Paris to be closer to her peripatetic brother Luke who was most recently in China bringing safe...

Don’t Say a Word, Mamá | No digas nada, Mamá by Joe Hayes, illustrated by Esau Andrade Valencia

12 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Bilingual, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x

Two sisters are always so kind, helpful, and nurturing that they make their Mamá feel like she's "'the luckiest mother in the whole wide world!'" Rosa grows up to marry and have three children; she lives just down the street from Mamá. Blanca chooses the...

The Longshot by Katie Kitamura

11 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese American, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Along the lines of Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Neal Bascomb's The Perfect Mile being running books, or Chris Cleave's Gold a biking title, or Thien Pham's Sumo and Gail Tsukiyama's The Street of a Thousand Blossoms sumo wrestling books, Katie Kitamura's debut is a boxing novel – or...

Untold Story by Monica Ali

10 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, British Asian, Fiction

Monica Ali's latest novel which pubbed June 28, 2011, just before what would have been Diana Spencer's 50th birthday – July 1, 2011 – had "The People's Princess" lived. In case the cover wasn't enough of a clue, that date detail matters because Untold Story imagines that Diana left...

My Name Is Blessing by Eric Walters, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes

09 Nov, by SIBookDragon in African, Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Nonfiction

Muthini – whose name means "suffering ...

The Hole by Øyvind Torseter, translated by Kari Dickson

08 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Translation

So here I find myself facing a bit of a conundrum: how best to tell you about this whimsical delight without spoiling that giddy sense of discovery ...

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