Adult Readers Archives - Page 48 of 154

Someone to Talk to by Liu Zhenyun, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin [in Library Journal]

09 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

Knowing each other's stories – even the most private details – doesn't equate with the true intimacy of having "someone to talk to." The two distinct sections of Liu's (Remembering 1942) latest Anglophone-friendly novel present two such lonely men whose seemingly unrelated lives share a...

Graphic Gems: Novels, Story Collections, and Memoirs for Adults [in The Booklist Reader]

04 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese, Japanese American, Korean American, Lists, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

While I’m addicted to various manga series (click here and here for some of my favorites), I’ve also discovered the satisfaction of single-volume graphic titles offering that perfect balance of fascinating narrative and gorgeously complementary, enhancing art. From goofy to haunting, comforting to challenging, and...

A 21st-Century Filipino American Fiction Reader [in The Booklist Reader]

30 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Repost, Short Stories, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Originally published in 1943, Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart is a cornerstone of classic Asian American literature. Drawing on Bulosan’s Filipino boyhood, his immigration to the United States, and the challenges he faced as a first-generation Asian American, it remains a notable inspiration, most recently...

Familiar Things by Sok-yong Hwang, translated by Sora Kim-Russell [in Booklist]

29 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Toughened by a nickname thrown at him by a policeman threatening punishment, Bugeye arrives on Flower Island – an ironic name for the vast city dump on the outskirts of Seoul – with his mother, who works as a garbage picker. His father is...

The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Dunya Mikhail, translated by Dunya Mikhail [in Booklist]

28 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Iraqi, Iraqi American, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Award-winning poet Dunya Mikhail, an Iraqi exile who fled her homeland in 1996 and eventually settled in Michigan, makes her nonfiction debut with a hybrid text that combines reportage and personal memoir with the intention of giving voice to northern Iraqi women victims of Daesh...

Let’s No One Get Hurt by Jon Pineda + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader]

22 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Black/African American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Repost

A Poet’s Novel: Jon Pineda talks LET’S NO ONE GET HURT Even a poetry dullard like me recognizes poet/memoirist/novelist Jon Pineda’s ability to do something spectacular with language. His lean sentences are surprisingly dense, as if to defy their brevity. Surely publishing three award-winning books of...

Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss [in Library Journal]

16 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Israeli, Jewish, Repost

In Nicole Krauss's (The Great House) first novel in seven years, two untethered American Jews experience parallel epic quests in Israel. One will die, the other will be transformed. The story is told in alternating chapters, and the pair never meet. Jules Epstein, a Manhattan lawyer...

Fresh Complaint: Stories by Jeffrey Eugenides [in Library Journal]

15 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

Although Fresh is Pulitzer Prize-winning Jeffrey Eugenides's (Middlesex) first-ever collection, the contents might seem familiar as only two of the 10 stories are actually "fresh" – the opening "Complainers" and closing "Fresh Complaint." The rest appeared in various publications between 1989 and 2013. What's truly new...

Heather, the Totality by Matthew Weiner [in Library Journal]

14 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

At just two hours, Matthew Weiner's debut novel is more of a novella, perhaps its length (or lack thereof) a reflection of his television expertise. Screen aficionados will certainly recognize Weiner's name: he's creator/producer/director of the wildly successful Mad Men and writer/producer of the groundbreaking...

Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi by John Scalzi [in Library Journal]

13 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

John Scalzi (Redshirts) explains in his snappy introduction, which he reads, that he has "two natural [writing] speeds": novel-long and "really short." This 18-piece collection showcases his "fast, punchy, and to the point"-shortest. For such a "miniature" book, it's got quite a full cast: Allyson...

Made for Love by Alissa Nutting [in Library Journal]

12 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

After 10 years of surveillance-heavy luxury living as wife to Byron, the founder of the ubiquitous Gogol Industries, Hazel flees to her widowed father's trailer to find her septuagenarian parent unpacking a sex doll. Despite the changing locations, Byron still looms, via a brain-implanted chip...

Cuba: My Revolution by Inverna Lockpez, illustrated by Dean Haspiel, colored by José Villarrubia

09 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Young Adult Readers

As the world welcomes 1959, 17-year-old Sonya is a hopeful young woman, despite the violent chaos that threatens her home city of Havana. Her boyfriend has already fled Cuba for Miami with his family, but Sonya is determined to contribute to the coming revolution by...

Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee [in Library Journal]

08 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, South American

Mira T. Lee’s impressive debut – both a celebration and mourning of the bond between two sisters, the younger afflicted with mental illness, the elder desperate to save her – deserves better aural interpretation. The full cast (in rare recognition, a who-was-who is added at...

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader]

07 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, South Asian, South Asian American

“I can’t think of a happier story”: Shobha Rao talks GIRLS BURN BRIGHTER After 15 years of writing and 15 years being rejected, Shobha Rao made her fiction debut two years ago with An Unrestored Woman, a collection of a dozen impeccable stories – savage and...

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward [in Library Journal]

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

In her second National Book Award-winning title, Jesmyn Ward returns to Bois Sauvage, MS, where her first NBA winner, Salvage the Bones, played out; Bones’ Skeetah and Eschelle appear momentarily here. Jojo, 13, and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their African American grandparents. Their drug-addicted mother...

Dust and Other Stories by Yi T’aejun, translated by Janet Poole [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW During Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea (1910–45), marked by systematic suppression of the Korean language, culture, and identity, Yi T’aejun produced stories that were “considered among the best of his time.” Translator Janet Poole’s impressive introduction not only contextualizes Yi’s significance in the Korean canon...

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich [in Library Journal]

02 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

Twenty-six-year-old, four-months-pregnant Cedar Hawk Songmaker was adopted by Minneapolis liberals but has recently reconnected with her extended Ojibwe birth family. Reunion notwithstanding, the world is in dystopic collapse – evolution is in rapid reverse, the Church of the New Constitution has usurped control, the human...

Death Comes in through the Kitchen by Teresa Dovalpage [in Booklist]

01 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

Matt Sullivan, a San Diego–based, bilingual tabloid features writer, arrives in 2003 Havana with ring and wedding dress in hand for his Cuban fianceé, Yarmi, only to find her lifeless body in the bathtub. Considered charming, chatty, and caring by all who knew her, Yarmi,...

The Graybar Hotel by Curtis Dawkins [in Library Journal]

28 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

Although the "Son of Sam" law prohibited criminals from profiting from their crimes by writing books or creating other crime-based entertainment, the Supreme Court struck down the law in 1991 citing First Amendment violations. Decades later, Dawkins, a convicted murderer serving life without parole, received...

The Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon [in Library Journal]

27 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Jordanian, Middle Eastern, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

After introducing a stupendous community of left-behind stateside military wives in her debut collection, You Know When the Men Are Gone, Siobhan Fallon presents in her first novel two women who have accompanied their U.S. Army husbands to Jordan. Shared circumstances ease Cassie and Margaret...

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