Adult Readers Archives - Page 13 of 154

Sensor by Junji Ito, translated by Jocelyne Allen [in Booklist]

01 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Japan’s graphic-horror auteur Junji Ito has yet another U.S. edition with a serialized manga originally published as Travelogue of the Succubus, compiled here as Sensor, translated by Jocelyne Allen, who also brought Ito’s Eisner-winning Frankenstein to English-language readers. Mount Sengoku erupted decades ago by the time...

Booklist Backlist: Japanese Graphic Horror [in Booklist]

29 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Lists, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

I can’t watch scary movies, but I love graphic horror on the page. And really, fear-mongering via Japanese manga – both series and standalones – promises some of the most affecting fright-fests. As we approach that most haunting time of the year, here’s some chilling company. Death...

Asadora! (vol. 3) by Naoki Urasawa, translated by John Werry [in Booklist]

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

The third volume of Naoki Urasawa’s latest superb spectacle begins to distinguish individual story lines while overlapping various subplots. It’s 1964, five years since Japan’s deadliest typhoon. Asa is as righteously spunky as ever, determined to expose what happened the morning after she witnessed what couldn’t...

Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl [in Booklist]

27 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Best known as a mega award-winning playwright, Sarah Ruhl (44 Poems for You, 2020) is also a MacArthur “Genius,” Yale professor, poet, and author. Her memoir is an utter gift – no superlatives are enough; no review can communicate its resonating efficacy. Just after Ruhl...

Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 1: From Syria to Turkey by Fabien Toulmé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]

26 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW French graphic creator Fabien Toulmé transforms “the words that were entrusted“ to him into this stupendous testimony of survival. The first of three volumes (the subsequent two have published in France and are scheduled to be published in the U.S. in 2022) begins with...

Home Reading Service by Fabio Morábito, translated by Curtis Bauer [in Booklist]

25 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Mexican, Repost, Translation

Poet, essayist, and fiction writer Fabio Morábito’s latest novel arrives stateside with the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, Mexico’s highest literary honor. Egypt-born, Italy-raised, Mexico-domiciled since 15, Morábito is polyphonic; American poet and professor Curtis Bauer adroitly enables English access here. Literacy, fluency, and interactive engagement with words...

Bring Your Baggage and Don’t Pack Light: Essays by Helen Ellis [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Rare is the audiobook that remains infectiously delightful through the ending credits, but Helen Ellis won’t disappoint with the 13 essays – her acknowledgements could almost qualify for a 14th, they’re that entertaining – of her second collection. Her beloved husband of 25 years...

One in Me I Never Loved by Carla Guelfenbein, translated by Neil Davidson [in Booklist]

21 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chilean, Fiction, Repost, South American, Translation

Margarita’s fifty-sixth birthday begins with suspicion of her husband’s infidelities and ends with his WhatsApp declaration, “I love you and I’m with you.” In between, Margarita passes the day with women – in search of and in person – earning her “dazzling lucidity” by nighttime. She...

Search History by Eugene Lim [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

For audiences in search of a quick slender read, Eugene Lim's surreally quirky Search History is not it. The pre-prologue to the prologue opens as "A Warning to the Reader" with various cautions and enlightenments; 152 dense pages later, gratification awaits. The story features a late Korean...

Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration by Sofija Stefanovic [in Shelf Awareness]

19 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Eastern European, European, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Repost, South Asian American, Southeast Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW The expectation of consistent quality among 36 global voices seems daunting, but editor Sofija Stefanovic admirably achieves this in a majority of these stories. Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration began on "one of the best-known stages of New York City" – the "plush...

Win Me Something by Kyle Lucia Wu [in Booklist]

18 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Repost

With a Chinese immigrant father and a white mother, Willa Chen examines her new adulthood as an untethered millennial. “If you’re undercared for, but essentially fine, what do you do with all that hurt, the kind that runs through your tendons and tugs on your...

This Is How I Disappear by Mirion Malle, translated by Aleshia Jensen and Bronwyn Haslam [in Shelf Awareness]

15 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Twenty-something Clara could seem content with her life: caring friends, social invitations, cozy apartment, a career in publishing, even a book contract. But French Canadian cartoonist Mirion Malle (The League of Super Feminists) introduces her protagonist with a speech bubble – a disturbing confession revealing...

Night Fisher by R. Kikuo Johnson [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hawaiian, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Lauded illustrator R. Kikuo Johnson's potent, career-making debut, Night Fisher – which won the prestigious Russ Manning Newcomer Award at the 2006 Eisner Awards – returns in a handsome hardcover edition. Originally published in 2005, Night Fisher was Johnson's antidote to Hollywood's Hawaii, "the backdrop for...

Brickmakers by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Argentinian, Fiction, Repost, South American, Translation

Argentinian literary powerhouse Selva Almada's stupendous second novel (after The Wind that Lays Waste) opens and ends in a deserted fairground where death claims two young men predestined to hate each other. Pájaro Tamai is "sprawled on his back," although just earlier that evening his ribs...

O Beautiful by Jung Yun [in Booklist]

12 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Repost

Elinor Hanson, her name not quite matching her mixed-race visage, has 10 days to prove herself worthy of an assignment for the prestigious Standard magazine. At 42, she’s struggling to establish her journalism career after long years in modeling. Her grad-school mentor Richard (and former...

Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy [in Booklist]

08 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Australian, British, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Charlotte McConaghy returns for another spectacular woman-and-nature thriller, finding a pitch-perfect accomplice in prolific Saskia Maarleveld. After chasing birds from the water in Migrations, McConaghy plants in the Scottish Highlands where the reintroduction of wolves – utterly disappeared by hunters since the late 1800s –...

The Strange Scent of Saffron by Miléna Babin, translated by Oana Avasilichioaei [in Shelf Awareness]

07 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW At a mere 160 pages, Miléna Babin's The Strange Scent of Saffron might seem spare, but its sizable cast and numerous crisscrossing narratives produce a dense, intricate, utterly satisfying read. In the town of Le Bic, Quebec, two strangers meet over an exquisite meal at the...

A Dream of a Woman by Casey Plett [in Shelf Awareness]

06 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Casey Plett's second collection, after A Safe Girl to Love and the novel Little Fish – both Lambda Award winners – once again features a spectrum of experiences lived by transgender women, from exhilarating to soul-crushing and all the quotidian moments in between. Among the exceptional dozen...

A Girl Called Rumi by Ari Honarvar [in Shelf Awareness]

04 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

Journalist/artist/activist Ari Honarvar's promising debut, A Girl Called Rumi, memorializes the lifesaving power of storytelling through the darkest terrors. In 1981, the Iran-Iraq War was still new and a semblance of normalcy seemed possible for 9-year-old Kimia, who claims "Rumi" as part-time moniker. She's missing...

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout [in Shelf Awareness]

01 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout has the remarkable ability to engage audiences immediately with just a few opening sentences. Her marvelous eighth novel, Oh William!, is no different, made even more inviting by being the third in her Amgash series, which began with My Name...

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