The Ever After of Ashwin Rao explores grief that lingers long after the bombing of an airliner Two weeks short of the 19th anniversary of the bombing of Air India Flight 182 – which disintegrated off the Irish coast on June 23,1985 – psychologist Ashwin Rao...
Most of this true, part of this is reasonable conjecture, all of it is electrifying. Filmmaker Jack Baxter arrives in Tel Aviv in 2003 to make a film that never happens. But on the night before his departure back to New York, he stumbles upon a...
Some strong suggestions first: 1. Don't read this hungry (just the phrase "Asian street food" will have many of you salivating); 2. Don't read this all alone at night. And, if you decide to 'read' by listening to narrator Feodor Chin, be further warned: he...
The Meursault Investigation cleverly builds on The Stranger by Camus In a New Yorker interview this March, Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud spoke of reading the iconic 1942 classic, The Stranger by Albert Camus – in which a man arbitrarily commits murder and is tried and sentenced...
Who needs text when you've got an outsized imagination and playful perspective like Korean artist JiHyeon Lee? Looking beyond the surface should always garner such audacious rewards! A boy in goggles surveys the crowded pool before him. Floats, oars, laughter, screeching, frowns confront him with virtually...
Aatish Taseer's latest opens with a mother's call to her Manhattan-based son, asking him to ferry his just-deceased father's body from Geneva back to Delhi. Though a minor Indian prince, "Toby" G.M.P.R. Kalasuryaketu – half-actually Scottish, half-Indian – was more a foreign "novelty" in his...
New readers, take note: Prophecy is a three-part series that needs to be read in order. No shortcuts, no interruptions. To catch up, go back here before continuing further. The final volume begins in the midst of an emergency call that should never have been made: “There...
Two of my favorite people in the world are becoming Seoul residents! Which means more reason for prolonged visits, hopefully sooner than later. One of the experiences I'm determined to make happen is an intense exploration of hanok. If your curiosity is at all piqued, definitely...
Rad American Women A-Z is the first-ever kids' title in 60 years of "storied history" from San Francisco's iconic bookseller/publisher City Lights. What a way to grab attention ...
If these Tokyo lovebirds don't steal your heart, they'll certainly inspire you to feed your growling belly. As you slobber your way through this latest volume of Shiro and Kenji's culinary delights, you might even be inspired to create something tasty of your own. The step-by-step panels...
While most teenagers his age are assiduously studying for college entrance exams, the narrator instead plots the eponymous perfect crime. Sent away by his widowed mother, for whom he has little respect, he lives with his Auntie, a woman he "hates." She could have been...
"I have a confession to make." Uh-oh. But no worries, the news is actually good. Wonderfully touching even: "I think I am in friend-love with you." No weirdness or discomfort, please. "I just so desperately want for you to think that I am this super-awesome...
Although I've been devoutly agnostic most of my adult life, I will admit that I get the occasional, random message from the higher-powers-that-be: understanding doesn't always come with these missives, more like nudges that I need to listen better. I keep trying ...
What I know about cricket is not so much about how the game is actually played, but that it's a cultural phenomenon that can actually save lives. Two favorite Indian films come immediately to mind: Lagaan, which was Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002,...
Re Jane cleverly recasts Jane Eyre as a Korean American from Queens If nothing else, choosing to retell a revered classic as a first novel requires either supreme spunk or reckless fatuity. For Patricia Park – who happens to be a thesis-advisee and protégée of National...
After yesterday's SuperMutant Magic Academy, here's a Jillian Tamaki bonus for non-kiddie readers. It's lucky #7 in rebel San Francisco-based publisher Youth in Decline’s Frontier, "a quarterly art and comics monograph series," as described on the company's website. "Inspired in part by South Korea's SSE Project...
Found in Translation For a nation of immigrants, our literary preferences surely seem to lean toward xenophobic. Among American presses, translated titles make up a mere 3% of published titles. The statistics aren’t too different in the United Kingdom: “Some call it the two percent problem,...
Daughters of the Samurai profiles three remarkable women who influenced modern Japanese history Set aside ample time: You won’t welcome intrusions while reading this unprecedented, true story featuring young Japanese girls who arrived stateside without language or cultural training, and matured into three of the most...
"We have three souls, or so I'd been told. But only in death could I confirm this." Thus begins Canadian author Janie Chang’s debut novel, Three Souls, in which a dead woman will learn about a life that ended too quickly, and how she might...
