Adult Readers Archives - Page 29 of 154

Bluebeard’s First Wife: Stories by Ha Seong-nan, translated by Janet Hong [in Booklist]

21 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Bestselling Korean author Ha Seong-nan and award-winning Canadian translator Janet Hong are two-for-two at spectacular pairing, repeating the successful partnership of Ha’s collection, Flowers of Mold (2019), with another sensational, 11-story collaboration. The titular “Bluebeard’s First Wife” features a 31-year-old woman who marries a...

Five More to Go: Nathacha Appanah’s Tropic of Violence [in The Booklist Reader]

20 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Chinese, Chinese American, European, Fiction, Indian, Lists, Repost, South Asian, Translation

Tropic of Violence by Nathacha Appanah and translated by Geoffrey Strachan How can a story so harrowing, so wrenching be so gorgeous? In her third novel exquisitely translated by award-winning Geoffrey Strachan, Mauritius-born journalist and translator Appanah (Waiting for Tomorrow, 2018) presents the beginning and dissolution...

The House of Deep Water by Jeni McFarland [in Shelf Awareness]

19 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

For Jeni McFarland, who survived childhood sexual assault, talking about her trauma "was like a dam burst," she reveals in an interview with her publisher. "It was so cathartic writing about it that I couldn't stop." That horrific survival, further aggravated by being one of...

The Fallen by Carlos Manuel Álvarez, translated by Frank Wynne [in Booklist]

18 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban, Fiction, Mexican, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW The family is Cuban. The son, 18, is fulfilling his military conscription, enduring mind-numbing sentry duty any way he can until his release. The mother, once a schoolteacher, is housebound with a violently debilitating illness. The father, who manages a four-star tourist hotel, is...

Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero by Christopher McDougall [in Library Journal]

17 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW What began as a New York Times series becomes a captivating book – and with Chris McDougall narrating, quite the aural gift. Sherman arrived on McDougall’s Pennsylvania farm close to death, rescued from an (unintentionally) abusive hoarder. A supportive herd – McDougall’s family (human...

Five More to Go: Kim Hyun Sook’s Banned Book Club [in The Booklist Reader]

15 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Canadian, Cuban, Cuban American, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Jewish, Korean, Latin American, Lists, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook with Ryan Estrada, illustrated by Ko Hyung-Ju Busan-based wife-and-husband team Kim and Estrada mine Kim’s young adult experiences to expose a chilling period of Korean history so antithetical to the globally addictive entertainment of K-dramas and K-pop currently synonymous...

Five More to Go: Corinne Manning’s We Had No Rules [in The Booklist Leader]

14 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Chinese American, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Korean, Laotian American, Lists, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Ukrainian, Ukrainian American

We Had No Rules by Corinne Manning Corinne Manning’s author statement couldn’t be clearer: “I had no idea how to write authentically until the day when I typed the sentence ‘Oh, f*ck it. I’m writing lesbian fiction.’” That declaration became “Gay Tale,” one of 11 stories...

Echo on the Bay by Masatsugu Ono, translated by Angus Turvill [in Booklist]

13 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Masatsugu Ono’s second novel, originally published in his native Japan as Nigiyakana wan ni seowareta fune (Boat on a Choppy Bay), won the prestigious Mishima Yukio Prize, and now arrives Anglophoned by award-winning Angus Turvill, who also translated Ono’s Lion’s Tread Point (2018). Ono, too, is...

Diversifying the Audiobook Industry: Four Asian American Narrators Take the Mic [in Library Journal]

11 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Indian American, Korean American, Lists, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

The publishing industry has been hard hit by COVID-19: festival and conference cancelations, library and bookstore shutterings, disappearing book tours, publishers’ office closings, production delays – especially with international printers – and, alas, probably more obstacles to come. But digital audiobooks can be the ideal,...

People of the City by Cyprian Ekwensi [in Shelf Awareness]

07 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Fiction, Repost

Although Chinua Achebe's pivotal Things Fall Apart is a staple on most Western students' reading lists as representative of modern African literature, Cyprian Ekwensi predates Achebe by four years as one of Nigeria's first writers publishing in English. Introduced in the U.K. in 1954, Ekwensi's debut...

The Library of Legends by Janie Chang [in Booklist]

06 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

They dubbed themselves the Minghua 123: 114 students and nine professors (plus 16 uncounted servants-laborers). In 1937, to escape the Japanese onslaught, they flee their university in Nanking to seek refuge a thousand miles westward. Saving their lives includes safeguarding 147 volumes of the Library...

Glorious Boy by Aimee Liu [in Library Journal]

04 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Liu’s eponymous “glorious boy” exists at the intersection of families, communities, countries, cultures – and, for a while, life and death. His spirited, adventurous parents – Shep, a British doctor obsessed with the healing power of indigenous plants, and the American Claire, a would-be...

Quichotte by Salman Rushdie [in Booklist]

01 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

STARRED REVIEW Sixteen hours. Multiple layers of convoluted narrative. A vast cast in need of distinct distinguishing by age, gender, social standing, ethnicity, region, accent. Who you gonna call? Already a proven collaborator after The Golden-House (2017) and Shame (audio 2017), Adam returns as Rushdie’s voice-of-choice for his latest meandering...

Something That May Shock and Discredit You by Daniel Mallory Ortberg [in Booklist]

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

“Just because you have a testosterone prescription and a new sense of exhilaration doesn’t mean you have to go around setting down your life story,” Daniel Mallory Ortberg writes (and thankfully narrates), disguised as “Paul and Second Timothy: The Transmasculine Epistles.” His response to his...

The Immortals of Tehran by Ali Araghi [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Persian, Persian American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Ali Araghi begins his prodigious debut novel with a literal bang: once upon a time in an apple orchard, a returning soldier urges his rifle into his son's hands, forcing the boy to shoot him. The shocking tragedy renders 10-year-old Ahmad mute, and has...

Apsara Engine by Bishakh Som [in Booklist]

27 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW A woman goes out for her regular evening walk on the beach, contemplating her relationship with her husband, until she sees a mermaid washed up on the shore. And here text and graphics suddenly diverge: the words reveal a recent affair, while the frames...

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid [in Booklist]

26 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

Regardless of skin color, net worth, socioeconomic background, you will cringe here – as well as laugh (possibly guffaw), roll your eyes, shake your head, perhaps even cry. Narrator Nicole Lewis has quite the diverse cast to perform – which she does with energetic aplomb and...

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabelle Allende, translated by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson [in Booklist]

25 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Latina/o/x, Repost, South American, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW How fitting that what might be Isabel Allende’s best work gets aurally elevated by one of audio’s most gifted narrators. For nearly 10 hours, Edoardo Ballerini embodies the extended Dalmau family, flowing through six decades, multiple countries, two continents, recounting the Spanish Civil War...

Remembrance by Rita Woods [in Booklist]

24 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

First-time-author Rita Woods shares the debut spotlight with her multi-faceted narrator Ella Turenne, who agilely ciphers the unique voices of four women who share one remarkable legacy. Turenne's present-day Gaelle is a Cleveland nursing home aide who survived the 2010 Haitian earthquake, and has recently...

Almond by Won-pyung Sohn, translated by Sandy Joosun Lee [in Booklist]

23 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Novels featuring neurodiverse protagonists are claiming more space on both adult and children’s shelves. The most common underlying message encourages kindness and empathy, despite obvious, sometimes impenetrable, differences. In what might be the first novel to feature a protagonist with alexithymia – an inability...

BookDragon Adult Readers