FireWife: A Story of Fire and Water by Tinling Choong [in Bloomsbury Review]
01 May, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Malaysian American, Repost
A young woman abandons her promising corporate job to seek out and photograph the scattered stories of women around the world. This slim, densely packed debut gives voice to eight questioning souls – some silenced by...
Marjane Satrapi on the "Axis of Evil," Cheese, and Exploring Family History
Marjane Satrapi changed my reading life. Before I picked up 
This is not a spoiler: Estella Habal's San Francisco's International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement is a story with a happy ending. Proof positive is the 2-year-old International Hotel, which stands...
I have to admit that I had never heard of Indian graphic novels (just not on my radar, even though I have a heavy South Asian diasporic literary bent because...
Well, no wonder why I hadn't heard of Indian graphic novels until discovering Sarnath Banerjee! I wasn't alone as his debut title, Corridor, was widely marketed as Indian's first graphic novel! Although, that's apparently incorrect information...
Any way you look at it, royal life is hell. So here's yet another book to prove it. "Although I had every luxury and my duties were often rewarding, Imperial glory also meant loneliness and living...
This is one of those life-changing books. Truly. I read it just before my first-ever trip to India (hoping to also go to Bangladesh at some point, but hasn't happened...
Considered one of Korea’s best modernist poets, Kim produced just one collection during his brief life – he died tragically (perhaps deliberately) of an opium overdose at just 32 years. That single collection, Azaleas, is available...
What's wrong with this picture?: An independent, cosmopolitan young woman, educated at Harvard and Oxford, proficient in six languages, who is on the fast track to becoming a diplomat in spite of a male-dominated society, gives...
Tarun Tejpal's debut novel, The Alchemy of Desire, begins and ends with the same words - but with a completely different meaning by book's end. Over the course of 518 pages, an unnamed writer takes a...
Buddha, Volume 1: Kapilavastu
Buddha, Volume 2: The Four Encounters
Buddha, Volume 3: Devadatta
Buddha, Volume 4: The Forest of Uruvela
Buddha, Volume 5: Deer Park
Buddha, Volume 6: Ananda
Buddha, Volume 7: Prince Ajatasattu
Buddha, Volume 8: Jetavana
Graphic novels are big...
Far atop the High Altai Mountains in western Mongolia is an unpredictable climate of extremes – breathtaking in its warmer beauty, yet unforgiving in the harshness of its frigid months. Unknown to most Westerners, the Republic...
Awake and Singing: Six Great American Jewish Plays (new edition), edited and with an introduction by Ellen Schiff
Nine Contemporary Jewish Plays, edited by Ellen Schiff and Michael Posnick, foreword by Theodore Bikel
Ask the random person...
While her husband Da Chen writes sweeping literary historical sagas, newcomer Sunny offers a contemporary entertaining tale of young Mona Lisa who discovers she has latent super-powers. Turns out our heroine is actually half-Monère, an ancient...
From the fabulous author of the marvelous A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time comes an entertainingly dysfunctional family tale starring newly retired George Hall who is convinced he’s dying of cancer (that “spot...
What a beginning: a snowstorm, a home birth, surprise twins, and a split-second decision by a father to give away his Down Syndrome-daughter while his wife believes their lost child has died. While the small leftover...
Author of bestselling memoirs Colors of the Mountain and Sounds of the River, Da Chen debuts his first novel for adults. The sprawling saga, set in late-20th-century China, follows the inevitably intertwined lives of two brothers...
A fluffy, fast read to warm the heart: gorgeous Lakshmi hides behind glasses as she looks deep into others’ lives while helping women find the perfect sari. Always the dutiful daughter, she agrees to her matchmaking...
Imagine a childhood marked by separation, isolation, abuse, sexual assault, disease and starvation. And imagine feeling lucky – because you survived such atrocities.
The most tragic irony of all is that Emily Wu is indeed lucky, even...