SIBookDragon, Author at BookDragon

Rich People Problems [Crazy Rich Asians 3] by Kevin Kwan [in Library Journal]

25 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hong Kongese, Repost, Singaporean, Singaporean American, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Kevin Kwan’s third volume continues to expose – albeit with plenty of schadenfreudian humor – the outrageous excesses and over-the-top machinations that began with his debut, Crazy Rich Asians (currently in highly anticipated celluloid production). Lydia Look, who voiced book two, China Rich Girlfriend,...

Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki [in Library Journal]

24 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Lady Daniels is supposed to be writing a memoir about raising her now-18-year-old mute son Seth, who communicates just fine using American Sign Language (ASL) and rapid typing on various screens. Lady’s toddler needs child care, however – Lady has recently pushed hubby out –...

The Years, Months, Days by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas [in Library Journal]

22 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Set in the fictional Balou Mountains in Yan's home province of Henan (also the setting for Lenin's Kisses), these two compelling novellas both exalt emotional bonds and warn against their fatal consequences. To escape endless drought, an entire village flees in search of sustenance...

Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu [in Christian Science Monitor]

21 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

'Little Soldiers' examines the Chinese education system from the inside Born in Philadelphia, reared in a Houston suburb, Stanford- and Columbia-educated, journalist Lenora Chu has a resume that – at first glance – looks very American. But her “connection to China came by birthright”: she’s “a...

North Station by Bae Suah, translated by Deborah Smith [in Library Journal]

20 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

One word describes Bae Suah's latest: enigmatic. The seven stories that comprise her first translated-into-English collection (and her third collaboration with prolifically adroit British translator of choice Smith) are more fragments than linear narratives. In the opening "First Snow, First Sight," unreliable memory between two...

Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy by Anne Lamott [in Library Journal]

19 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Most of Anne Lamott’s nonfiction titles are generally variations on a theme: be kind – to yourself, to others – and you’ll make the world a better place. Somehow, though, each book arrives sounding fresh and new – and effective. That Lamott narrates almost all...

Cuba on the Verge: 12 Writers on Continuity and Change in Havana and Across the Country edited by Leila Guerriero [in Booklist]

18 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cuban, Latin American, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Since Obama’s 2014 visit reestablishing ties between the U.S. and Cuba, American travelers have had the long-lost opportunity for direct exploration, but there are “no easy answers,” warns Argentinian journalist Leila Guerriero at the start of her anthology of stupendously astute essays. Half are...

The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch [in Library Journal]

17 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Narrator Xe Sands delivers this Book with control, even detachment: the almost languid tone chillingly amplifies the hideous near-future Yuknavitch exposes in her highly anticipated follow-up to The Small Backs of Children. At 49, Christine is in her “last year until ascension,” an anachronistic term that...

Why Am I Me? by Paige Britt, illustrated by Sean Qualls and Selina Alko [in Shelf Awareness]

15 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Somewhere in a city, people are homeward bound at day's end. Among the commuters are a skateboarding boy and presumably his father; walking slightly ahead are a violin case-carrying girl accompanied by a flower-toting woman, most likely her mother. Waiting for the subway, boy and...

The Bookshop on the Corner: 12(-ish) Novels about Bookstores [in The Booklist Reader]

14 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Australian, British, European, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Sometimes – way too often, these days – reality is just, well, too real. So into these beckoning pages I retreat. Novels about bookstores are ultra-alluring, since the possibility of escapist respite is virtually limitless. To follow are a dozen recent titles celebrating those literary...

Letters to Memory by Karen Tei Yamashita [in Christian Science Monitor]

13 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

'Letters to Memory' tells the story of author Karen Tei Yamashita's World War II internment “I have no formed definition of this project except an intuition that you would listen and be attentive and somehow understand,” Karen Tei Yamashita writes in Letters to Memory, her sagacious follow-up...

Long Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan [in Library Journal]

12 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

“This was a long time ago,” Jennifer Finney Boylan (She’s Not There) begins – August 1980, more specifically. “[N]one of us now are the people we were then.” Thirty-five years later, the college friends who trespassed into the boarded-up Eastern State Penitentiary are now “ghosts:...

Favorite Diverse Children’s Books of 2016 [in Utah Journal of Literacy]

07 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Bangladeshi American, Black/African American, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Caribbean American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Persian, Persian American, Repost, South Asian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

ABSTRACT These books feature diverse characters who – in a multiplicity of ways – suffer, learn, and generally triumph in their differences. Varying in genre from picture book to poetry, in setting from Kenya to California, and in ethnic focus from Muslim Bangladeshi to Ojibway/Anishinaaabe (Canadian...

Stolen Words by Melanie Florence, illustrated by Gabrielle Grimard [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Skipping and dancing home from school, a young girl carries in one hand a dream catcher she's made, and with the other she holds onto her Grandpa. "How do you say grandfather in Cree?" she asks. And suddenly their walk turns somber as Grandpa...

Author Interview: Lisa Ko [in Bloom]

05 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Q&A with Lisa Ko: Trying and Failing and Trying Again Lisa Ko’s parents often reminded her how lucky she was to grow up in a mostly-white suburb outside NYC. Ko is the daughter of ethnic Chinese parents who were born and raised in the Philippines and...

Series: Leaving My Homeland

31 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Afghan, African, Children/Picture Books, Iraqi, Nonfiction, Syrian

A Refugee's Journey from Afghanistan by Helen Mason A Refugee's Journey from the Democratic Republic of the Congo by Ellen Rodger A Refugee's Journey from Iraq by Ellen Rodger A Refugee's Journey from Syria by Helen Mason Working with members of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University in Toronto,...

Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee [in Library Journal]

29 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Ten years ago, Lee was married to her college boyfriend, living in Berkeley, and working as the human resources director at a small company. On New Year’s Eve 2006, Lee suffered a stroke. She was 33. She would spend the better part of a decade...

The Door by Magda Szabó, translated by Len Rix [in Library Journal]

28 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Originally published in 1987, The Door is one of the few titles available in English by the late Magda Szabó (1917–2007), considered one of if not the most prominent Hungarian writer. The aural version makes its roundabout debut this year, after two Anglophone translations,...

what did you eat yesterday? (vol. 12) by Fumi Yoshinaga, translated by Jocelyne Allen

25 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

"[D]ecidedly catholic" tastes aside, The Manga Critic is oh so right: I DOOOOOOOOOOOO "religiously" review every issue of this toothsome series! How could I ever ignore such delicious delights, I tell you! So what's the latest for our favorite Tokyo lovebirds? While Shiro takes his parents...

A Word for Love by Emily Robbins [in Library Journal]

24 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Middle Eastern, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Syrian

The arrival of an unexpected package inspires Bea to begin writing her story, "in the hope that [she] could do it justice, and clear [her] conscience." Years earlier, she traveled to an unnamed Middle Eastern country (certainly inspired by Syria, where debut author Emily Robbins...

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