Audience Archives - Page 15 of 233

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW In her fifth self-narration, acclaimed Indigenous author Louise Erdrich’s latest is delightfully enhanced with personal meta-references, insightfully balancing the narrative’s heavier events. Louise, the owner of Minneapolis’ Birchbark Books (as is the author herself), goes on a just-before-pandemic-shutdown book tour – clearly a nod...

Reprieve by James Han Mattson [in Booklist]

13 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A multi-generational family home of horrors looms throughout James Han Mattson’s (The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves) spellbinding latest. Ever-versatile narrator JD Jackson chills and thrills, underscoring the slyly literary, intensifying the social commentary, enhancing the utterly gory. John Forrester began his house of frights...

Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey by Erin Entrada Kelly

07 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Middle Grade Readers

“You’re scared of your own shadow,” Marisol’s older brother declares. She’s hurt but also admits, “Why do I have to be scared of everything all the time? No one else is.” Sometimes, eight-year-old Marisol’s ‘what-if’-worries prevent her from doing what she wants – including climbing her...

I’d Like to Say Sorry, but There’s No One to Say Sorry To: Stories by Mikołaj Grynberg, translated by Sean Gasper Bye [in Shelf Awareness]

05 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Eastern European, European, Fiction, Jewish, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

Photographer/psychologist/author Mikołaj Grynberg is best known in his native Poland for his documentary nonfiction featuring his generation of Polish Jews, born after the Holocaust and raised by survivors. Grynberg turns to fiction for the first time with I'd Like to Say Sorry, but There's No One...

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward [in Booklist]

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

Catriona Ward’s latest is quite the creepfest addition to psychological thrillers in which houses or buildings star as characters. Veteran Christopher Ragland sounds so appropriately trusting, even as listeners should be well aware: believe no one. The book’s characters couldn’t be more different, but Ragland proves...

The Donut Trap by Julie Tieu [in Booklist]

03 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Cambodian American, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Casting an Asian American narrator for Asian American characters created by an Asian American author initially seems to be a promising decision, but Taiwanese American Natalie Naudus, though pleasant overall for Julie Tieu’s debut, isn’t consistently convincing with the multiple Asian languages in play. One...

What Is Love? by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Carson Ellis [in Shelf Awareness]

31 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Mac Barnett (Paolo, Emperor of Rome), lauded author of dozens of titles, poses a timeless question that has no absolute response in What Is Love?, a poignant, often humorous exploration of one of life's most personal experiences. "When I was a boy," Barnett's story begins,...

I Know You Love Me, Too by Amy Neswald [in Shelf Awareness]

30 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW The fraught relationship between two half-sisters links the 14 stories of Amy Neswald's exceptional debut collection, I Know You Love Me, Too. Ingrid and Kate, eight years apart, share a father who died when Ingrid was 20 and Kate 12. "Relationships between half-sisters should be half...

Thirty Talks Weird Love by Alessandra Narváez Varela [in Booklist]

29 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

At 13, Anamaria is a beloved daughter, a top-performing student at an elite academy. But she lives in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico on the Texas border in 1999, threatened by looming femicide. And then Anamaria meets Thirty, who insists she’s Anamaria’s 17-years-in-the-future self. Thirty indeed talks...

The Bennet Women by Eden Appiah-Kubi [in Booklist]

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

Among countless Pride and Prejudice adaptations, Eden Appiah-Kubi’s debut might be the only with a transgender co-lead; it certainly has one of the most non-traditional Jane Austen-inspired casts ever. Welcome to Bennet House, Longbourn College’s first and only female residence. Appiah-Kubi’s Bennet sisters here are Black engineering...

Incense and Sensibility [The Rajes series, Book 3] by Sonali Dev [in Booklist]

27 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Sonali Dev continues to channel Jane Austen via the Raje family with her third in the series, familiarly, gratefully voiced by Indian American favorite Soneela Nankani. Dev opens with a literal bang: California gubernatorial candidate Yash Raje is shot during a rally. His physical recovery...

Joan Is Okay by Weike Wang [in Booklist]

23 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Complicated intergenerational relationships have long fueled fiction, with immigration notably adding further challenges to parent-child understanding and bonding. Weike Wang’s provocative sophomore novel (after Chemistry, 2017) again centers on an accomplished Chinese American Harvard graduate with uneasy social, professional, and familial connections. Here Wang dissects the...

City of Incurable Women by Maud Casey [in Shelf Awareness]

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

At just 128 pages, Maud Casey's compelling City of Incurable Women – ostensibly a historical novel featuring 19th-century French women institutionalized with diagnoses of hysteria – might invite an expeditious single-sitting read. That sparseness obscures its intricate density: hardly straightforward narrative, City of Incurable Women is a...

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka [in Booklist]

20 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning, bestselling Julie Otsuka is averaging one book per decade, making each exquisite title exponentially more precious. Here she creates a stupendous collage of small moments that results in an extraordinary examination of the fragility of quotidian human relationships. Initially set in an underground pool, it voices...

Dream Street by Tricia Elam Walker, illustrated by Ekua Holmes [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Repost

Dream Street by cousins Tricia Elam Walker (Nana Akua Goes to School) and Ekua Holmes (Voice of Freedom; Saving American Beach) is a formidable, potent antidote to a world that is often unkind to children, especially children of color. Here, "the children who live and play on...

Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel [in Shelf Awareness]

15 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Japanese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

"Objects just seem to collect me, of their own volition," insists Haruki Murakami (First Person Singular): LPs, books, magazine clippings, pencil stubs, and, of course, T-shirts. Murakami T might detour from his global bestsellers, but it's a delightful glimpse into iconic Murakami through his casual...

Leonard Cohen: On a Wire by Philippe Girard, translated by Helge Dascher and Karen Houle [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Canadian, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Jewish, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Award-winning Canadian cartoonist Philippe Girard (Obituary Man) admirably condenses seven decades into a concise 120 pages in Leonard Cohen: On a Wire. It's a valuable introduction to the tumultuous life of the iconic singer/songwriter/poet perhaps best remembered for his classic "Hallelujah," eventually covered by some...

Pyre by Perumal Murugan, translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan [in Booklist]

13 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Indian, Repost, Translation

Perumal Murugan and Aniruddhan Vasudevan reunite after the infamous “success” of Murugan’s translated-into-English debut, One Part Woman, longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Murugan declared himself dead on Facebook after the cult novel was viciously condemned in India, his homeland, and...

Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow [in Booklist]

10 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Making her dual print and audio debut, journalist Kat Chow relies on words to resurrect her late mother – and lost family, by extension – who died of cancer in 2004. Not yet 50, her mother seemed to fulfill the superstition that the women in...

Passport by Sophia Glock [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Few titles need official CIA permission to be published, but Sophia Glock's perceptive graphic novel memoir, Passport, had to go through the "daunting and complicated task" of obtaining the CIA's Publication Review Board approval. Glock's parents were "intelligence officers," an admission they disclosed when they...

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