Adult Readers Archives - Page 50 of 154

The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story by Edwidge Danticat [in Library Journal]

11 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Haitian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Compassion goes a long way when writing about death – especially the death of loved ones. Narrating such a book requires a gentleness, a soothing rhythm. That Danticat reads her latest nonfiction – a thoughtful meditation bookended by her mother's fatal cancer diagnosis and Danticat's...

A Transracial Adoption Reader [in The Booklist Reader]

10 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Indian American, Korean, Korean American, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Now-adult adoptees who arrived in the United States from other countries are learning that their U.S. citizenship can’t be assumed. Two recent tragedies have highlighted the shocking realization: the May 2017 suicide of Phillip Clay, adopted at eight by a Philadelphia family and deported to Seoul 29...

The Luster of Lost Things by Sophie Chen Keller [in Library Journal]

09 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Kirby Heyborne deploys his gentle charm to give voice to 12-year-old Walter Lavender Jr. who, owing to "a motor speech disorder," might seem mute to the outside world but has an imaginative soul that can't be silenced. Always an insightful observer, Walter is an unparalleled...

How to Be a Muslim: An American Story by Haroon Moghul [in Library Journal]

08 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonfiction, Pakistani American, Repost, South Asian American

With raw honesty (the memoir opens with suicide ideation), debilitating angst (the unrelenting hold of mental illness), and humor when least expected (the terrors of securing a prom date), Haroon Moghul’s memoir becomes an illuminating antidote to contemporary Islamophobia. As the U.S.-born son of immigrant Pakistani...

The Sisters Chase by Sarah Healy [in Library Journal]

05 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

When Diane dies in a car accident, her daughters, 18-year-old Mary and 4-year-old Hannah, are left effectively with nothing. The family's rundown New Jersey seaside motel, which has always been home, is less than worthless owing to back taxes. Without resources, Mary and Hannah head...

Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy [in Library Journal]

04 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Maile Meloy (Madame Lazarus) makes her narrating debut with this disturbing thriller that showcases a parent's worst nightmare – the disappearance of children. Best friends and cousins Liv and Nora take their husbands and two children (each) on a holiday cruise. The families bask in...

The Emissary by Yoko Tawada, translated by Margaret Mitsutani [in Library Journal]

02 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Translation

Japanese-born, Germany-based Tawada (Memoirs of a Polar Bear) writes facilely in both languages and creates incomparable award-winning fiction that defies easy labels. Tawada's latest in translation (smoothly rendered by Mitsutani, who also translated one of Tawada's earliest works, the three-storied The Bridegroom Was a Dog)...

My Brother’s Husband (Volume 1) by Gengoroh Tagame, translated by Anne Ishii

29 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Talk about a new kind of family ...

Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart [in School Library Journal]

20 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Jule West Williams is "the kind of woman it would be a great mistake to underestimate." Her background might be imagined, but the self-assessment is exact. Her invented 10-year "highly unusual education" – not unlike the epic journeys of white hetero heroes, which she both...

The Hidden Light of Northern Fires by Daren Wang + Author Interview [in Bloom]

19 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

I’ve been hanging with a few serious Civil War buffs the last couple weeks (one of whom is a licensed historical tour guide and descended from a Civil War lieutenant colonel) and I haven’t yet met an “expert” who’s heard this strange tale about tiny...

Heartland by Ana Simo [in Booklist]

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

Although the inaugural Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing went to Deepak Unnikrishnan’s dazzling Temporary People (2017), the judges were so enthralled by the “insane and brilliant” Heartland by Cuban-born, New York-domiciled lesbian activist Simo that it, too, went to press, enabling the 73-year-old...

The Bookshop at Water’s End by Patti Callahan Henry [in Library Journal]

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

Two friends return to Watersend, SC, to the childhood vacation house their families once shared. Bonny Blankenship, an ER doctor forced to take a break, needs to face her bitter marriage and stalled career. She’s hoping her teenage daughter Piper, who’s just failed her first...

Favorite Adult Books 2017 [in The Booklist Reader]

11 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, British Asian, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Pakistani, Repost, South Asian, Translation

What sweet agony to have so many fantabulous, freakin’ spectacular books from which to cull. I’ve got my 2017 favorite adult titles down to a baker’s dozen, chosen under great duress. They’re presented in alphabetical order – opposed to actually ranked, a feat which just might...

The Child by Fiona Barton [in Library Journal]

07 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Just as the audiobook of Fiona Barton’s hair-raising debut, The Widow, got the full-cast treatment, so, too, does her equally unnerving sophomore effort. Mandy Williams returns as Kate Waters, the tenacious newspaper reporter introduced in Widow, who again won’t stop sleuthing until she has all...

Stay with Me by Ayobami Adebayo [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Against a tumultuous backdrop of political, military, and economic turmoil in modern Nigeria comes a portrait of a marriage that begins with idealistic devotion and ardent promise. For Yejide and Akin, love should have been enough, but after four years without children, “even love...

Penance by Kanae Minato, translated by Philip Gabriel [in Library Journal]

04 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Kanae Minato is two for two for twisted psychological Japanese noir. What she did with deadly milk cartons in Confessions made quite the debut splash. She goes back to school in Penance (expertly rendered into English by lauded translator Philip Gabriel) in which 10-year-old Emily is raped...

The Lying Game by Ruth Ware [in Library Journal]

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

Imogen Church is three-for-three as Ruth Ware’s anointed narrator. With her convincing range of accents, modulations, and control, Church adroitly voices multiple viewpoints, proving to be more effective than many full-cast recordings. Like her previous bestsellers, The Woman in Cabin 10 and In a Dark,...

The Goddess of Mtwara and Other Stories: The Caine Prize for African Writing 2017, with an introduction by Lizzy Attree [in Booklist]

28 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Fiction, Short Stories, Translation

The Caine Prize is regarded as “Africa’s leading literary award.” The 18th Caine Prize was selected from 148 entries from 22 African countries. This resulting collection highlights the five short listers, with 11 additional stories chosen from the Caine Prize workshop, a 12-day retreat for...

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah [in Library Journal]

27 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Arimah's debut collection comprises a dozen surprising, affecting stories. Narrator Adjoa Andoh sublimely intensifies the author's already breathtaking prose into an irresistible, spectacular performance, as she effortlessly modulates her distinctive voice, picking up genders and generations, cadences and accents, and just as easily discards...

A Bride’s Story (vols. 8-9) by Kaoru Mori, translated by William Flanagan

24 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Central Asian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Without a doubt, A Bride's Story is the most intricately detailed, magnificently exquisite graphic series currently on my shelves. Every volume is a lavish gift to pore over, to enthusiastically applaud, to be gobsmackingly impressed by again and again and again. Superlatives just aren't enough. To...

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