BookDragon Author: SIBookDragon

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee

09 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Biography, Indian American, Nonfiction, South Asian American

I won't lie: at almost 600 pages (or almost 21 hours if you choose the audible option), Siddhartha Mukherjee's 2011 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction is a Commitment (yes, capitalization intended!). But commitment can come with vast rewards and, in this case, get ready for a massive infusion of...

Wandering Son (vol. 1) by Shimura Takako, translated by Matt Thorn

06 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Middle Grade Readers, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Nitori Shuichi and his older sister Maho are starting at a new school. Before he's even entered his fifth-grade classroom, Nitori has already been mistaken for a girl. He is indeed a beautiful boy ...

Three Junes by Julia Glass

05 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

So this is why Julia Glass won the 2002 National Book Award. Nine Junes later, I'm catching up! As I started out disappointed having read her third title first (I See You Everywhere), I admit to letting out one contented long sigh with this one. Glass'...

Intuition by Allegra Goodman

04 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

True confession: Intuition is not my favorite Allegra Goodman title (I remain most partial to Kaaterskill Falls and recently enjoyed The Cookbook Collector). That said, Intuition proved to be a highly useful tool as I happened to read it just before I picked up 2011 nonfiction Pulitzer Prize...

Drown by Junot Díaz

03 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean American, Fiction, Short Stories

Talk about a surprisingly fortuitous bonus: If you get the audible version of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, included in the deal is Junot Díaz's debut title, Drown, a collection of 10 mostly-related short stories. That both Díaz titles are read with such fluency...

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

02 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean American, Fiction

Here are a few new things I learned from Junot Díaz's 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winner that many of you already read long ago ...

An Empty Room: Stories by Mu Xin, translated by Toming Jun Liu [in Library Journal]

01 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

With 20-plus books published in Taiwan and China, writer/painter Mu finally makes his English debut with a collection of 13 stories he chose from three previous titles. The result is, in a word, uneven. Standouts outshine the less than memorable, perhaps making the latter seem that...

Dogtag Summer by Elizabeth Partridge

31 May, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese American

I admit it: more than a few pages now have drying leftover droplets. Elizabeth Partridge, whose last title was the multi-award-winning Marching for Freedom, sure knows how to make a jaded old reader go sniff, sniff. On the last day of seventh grade, best friends Tracy and Stargazer...

A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan by Nelofer Pazira

30 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Afghan, Afghan American, Canadian, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

In September 1978, three months before her fifth birthday, Nelofer Pazira went to visit her father on the third day of what would become a five-month unjust imprisonment; his alleged crime, like thousands of other Afghans at the time, was not supporting the Communist government....

The Day Tiger Rose Said Goodbye by Jane Yolen, illustrated by Jim LaMarche

29 May, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Once upon a time B.C. – that's Before Children – the hubby and I had four furry practice kiddies. One of them was named Bob. As in Bob Cat. He was named by my middle brother, who lived with us on and off (in between...

Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush by Luis Alberto Urrea, artwork by Christopher Cardinale

28 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers

Fact: Luis Alberto Urrea's creativity is limitless. Lest you cast doubt about quantity vs. quality, rest assured: Urrea's got BOTH. He's done the award-winning, list-making, bestselling memoirs, novels, short stories, poetry collections, anthologies, and provided the thousand words for others' pictures ...

Tall Story by Candy Gourlay

27 May, by SIBookDragon in British, Fiction, Filipina/o, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Southeast Asian

As we head into the holiday weekend, here's a debut novel to help you celebrate ...

Bitter Melon by Cara Chow

26 May, by SIBookDragon in Chinese American, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers

You thought Amy Chua was the ultimate Tiger Mother??!! Ha! Chua looks like a mewling cub next to Gracie Ching, the ranting, manipulative, so-called traditional Chinese mother whose idea of tough love includes beating your daughter ...

The Great Wall of Lucy Wu by Wendy Wan-Long Shang

25 May, by SIBookDragon in Chinese American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers

Talk about timing ...

Warp Speed by Lisa Yee

23 May, by SIBookDragon in Chinese American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Young Adult Readers

Here's proof that your questions really make a difference, at least to the imaginative Lisa Yee: "On one of her many school visits, a reader asked what happened to Marley from Stanford Wong, which inspired her to tell his story here," Yee's "About the Author" end-page...

Vatos | poem by Luis Alberto Urrea, photographs by José Galvez

22 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Latina/o/x, Nonfiction, Poetry, Young Adult Readers

Luis Alberto Urrea's "hymn to vatos who will never be in a poem" provides the lyrical frame onto which Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer José Galvez showcases the everyday challenges and celebrations of the Latino experience. This slightly sepia-ed homage to masculinity-on-the-fringe was a 2002 Quick Pick...

Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

21 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British, European, Fiction, South Asian, Turkish

To reduce this rich, complicated, multi-layered story into a few sentences seems almost disrespectful ...

I Have the Right to Destroy Myself by Young-ha Kim, translated by Chi-Young Kim

20 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Translation

In densely populated Seoul, a mysterious man makes a lucrative living by helping "clients" commit suicide. He’s not exactly Dr. Death Kevorkian offering physically depleted bodies reprieve; instead he has a special talent for finding lost, disconnected souls ready to leave behind their unfulfilling existence...

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol

18 May, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Middle Grade Readers, Russian American, Young Adult Readers

Unhappily distracted on her walk home – her immigrant mother's fatty cooking, her growing body, her less-than-ideal only friend, her unrequited love for the school jock, her disdain for that other Russian immigrant with whom she has absolutely nothing in common, no FOB is she! – Anya falls...

Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan by Zarghuna Kargar

17 May, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Afghan, British, Memoir, Nonfiction

"'I hope other people – particularly women – listen to these stories and become kinder to their own sex,'" a woman laments, her life made unbearable by her female in-laws who condemn her because she literally flushed away the evidence of her virginal blood. "'I don't understand...