Adult Readers Archives - Page 53 of 154

The Years, Months, Days by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas [in Library Journal]

22 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Set in the fictional Balou Mountains in Yan's home province of Henan (also the setting for Lenin's Kisses), these two compelling novellas both exalt emotional bonds and warn against their fatal consequences. To escape endless drought, an entire village flees in search of sustenance...

Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu [in Christian Science Monitor]

21 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

'Little Soldiers' examines the Chinese education system from the inside Born in Philadelphia, reared in a Houston suburb, Stanford- and Columbia-educated, journalist Lenora Chu has a resume that – at first glance – looks very American. But her “connection to China came by birthright”: she’s “a...

North Station by Bae Suah, translated by Deborah Smith [in Library Journal]

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

One word describes Bae Suah's latest: enigmatic. The seven stories that comprise her first translated-into-English collection (and her third collaboration with prolifically adroit British translator of choice Smith) are more fragments than linear narratives. In the opening "First Snow, First Sight," unreliable memory between two...

Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy by Anne Lamott [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Most of Anne Lamott’s nonfiction titles are generally variations on a theme: be kind – to yourself, to others – and you’ll make the world a better place. Somehow, though, each book arrives sounding fresh and new – and effective. That Lamott narrates almost all...

Cuba on the Verge: 12 Writers on Continuity and Change in Havana and Across the Country edited by Leila Guerriero [in Booklist]

18 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban, Latin American, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Since Obama’s 2014 visit reestablishing ties between the U.S. and Cuba, American travelers have had the long-lost opportunity for direct exploration, but there are “no easy answers,” warns Argentinian journalist Leila Guerriero at the start of her anthology of stupendously astute essays. Half are...

The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Narrator Xe Sands delivers this Book with control, even detachment: the almost languid tone chillingly amplifies the hideous near-future Yuknavitch exposes in her highly anticipated follow-up to The Small Backs of Children. At 49, Christine is in her “last year until ascension,” an anachronistic term that...

The Bookshop on the Corner: 12(-ish) Novels about Bookstores [in The Booklist Reader]

14 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Australian, British, European, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Sometimes – way too often, these days – reality is just, well, too real. So into these beckoning pages I retreat. Novels about bookstores are ultra-alluring, since the possibility of escapist respite is virtually limitless. To follow are a dozen recent titles celebrating those literary...

Letters to Memory by Karen Tei Yamashita [in Christian Science Monitor]

13 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

'Letters to Memory' tells the story of author Karen Tei Yamashita's World War II internment “I have no formed definition of this project except an intuition that you would listen and be attentive and somehow understand,” Karen Tei Yamashita writes in Letters to Memory, her sagacious follow-up...

Long Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan [in Library Journal]

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

“This was a long time ago,” Jennifer Finney Boylan (She’s Not There) begins – August 1980, more specifically. “[N]one of us now are the people we were then.” Thirty-five years later, the college friends who trespassed into the boarded-up Eastern State Penitentiary are now “ghosts:...

Author Interview: Lisa Ko [in Bloom]

05 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Q&A with Lisa Ko: Trying and Failing and Trying Again Lisa Ko’s parents often reminded her how lucky she was to grow up in a mostly-white suburb outside NYC. Ko is the daughter of ethnic Chinese parents who were born and raised in the Philippines and...

Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee [in Library Journal]

29 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Ten years ago, Lee was married to her college boyfriend, living in Berkeley, and working as the human resources director at a small company. On New Year’s Eve 2006, Lee suffered a stroke. She was 33. She would spend the better part of a decade...

The Door by Magda Szabó, translated by Len Rix [in Library Journal]

28 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Originally published in 1987, The Door is one of the few titles available in English by the late Magda Szabó (1917–2007), considered one of if not the most prominent Hungarian writer. The aural version makes its roundabout debut this year, after two Anglophone translations,...

what did you eat yesterday? (vol. 12) by Fumi Yoshinaga, translated by Jocelyne Allen

25 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Translation, Young Adult Readers

"[D]ecidedly catholic" tastes aside, The Manga Critic is oh so right: I DOOOOOOOOOOOO "religiously" review every issue of this toothsome series! How could I ever ignore such delicious delights, I tell you! So what's the latest for our favorite Tokyo lovebirds? While Shiro takes his parents...

A Word for Love by Emily Robbins [in Library Journal]

24 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Middle Eastern, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Syrian

The arrival of an unexpected package inspires Bea to begin writing her story, "in the hope that [she] could do it justice, and clear [her] conscience." Years earlier, she traveled to an unnamed Middle Eastern country (certainly inspired by Syria, where debut author Emily Robbins...

Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki, translated by Eriko Sugita [in Library Journal]

21 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Japanese, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Think Marie Kondo (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up) on steroids: fellow Japanese lifestyle (albeit reluctant) guru Fumio Sasaki shed 95 percent of his stuff. "There's happiness in having less," his here's-why-and-how primer begins. "That's why it's time to say good-bye to all our extra things."...

The Idiot by Elif Batuman [in Library Journal]

18 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Turkish American

Batuman makes her fiction debut already a literary darling: a New Yorker staff writer since 2010 and the author of a much-adored essay collection, The Possessed, about the pleasurable intricacies of reading Russian literature. The year is 1995, and Turkish American 18-year-old Selin enters Harvard. She...

Beasts Head for Home by Kōbō Abe, translated by Richard F. Calichman [in Booklist]

17 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Japan’s defeat in WWII not only meant decimation at home but also resulted in the postwar repatriation of Japan’s colonial diaspora of more than four million citizens from throughout Asia. Among the dispossessed in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, China’s Manchuria, is Kuki Kyūzō,...

Beyond Books: Memoirs That Reckon with Death [in The Booklist Reader]

16 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Lists, Memoir, Repost

Being part of the "sandwich generation" caught between aging parents and almost-adult children means that mortality begins to loom heavier as the years pass. Sharing the burden of tragedy with thoughtful, wise, and gentle others through books is certainly one of the most readily-available balms....

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie [in Christian Science Monitor]

14 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, British Asian, Fiction, Pakistani, Repost

'Home Fire' is an exquisite modern tragedy about families caught between religion, politics That Home Fire is among the recently announced 2017 Man Booker Dozen means it arrives stateside with quite the notable stamp of approval. The novel is considerably more affecting than that other longlist...

Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang [in Christian Science Monitor]

02 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

'Sour Heart' author Jenny Zhang illuminates the immigrant's struggles to belong “Lena Dunham is like my fairy godmother,” Jenny Zhang revealed in a recent interview with The Guardian, albeit one who tweets and emails with unsolicited offers of editorial help. In the often capricious world of...

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