Wrong About Japan: A Father’s Journey with His Son by Peter Carey [in AsianWeek]
27 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Japanese, Nonfiction, Repost
Talk about bad first impression: Reading the jacket cover description with the glaring spelling error, “Shitimachi” (what does that sound like?!) instead of the correct “Shitamachi” (which literally means ‘below-town’ or more...
Oh, Asian influences are everywhere we look … and becoming endlessly more visible – or, in this case, more visual. The influences of Buddhist teachings and perspectives are...
From the screenwriter of such award-winning films as Mississippi Masala and Salaam Bombay! comes a stunning portrait of a rapidly shrinking community, the Parsis who number just 100,000 today. Followers of Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s...
With the 30th anniversary this year of the end of the Vietnam-U.S. War (and the 30th anniversary of the first significant wave of Vietnamese immigration to the United States), expect a lot more titles...
Here’s the set up: a 15-year-old boy runs away from home possibly in search of his long-missing mother and sister, and is befriended by a library employee and a young...
Based on 15 years of experience as the faculty advisor to the Vietnamese Student Association at a San Jose, Calif., high school, Barry condenses his experiences to tell the story of a year in...
Clint Eastwood, Summer Love, and Cockfighting
The good news first: Rattawut Lapcharoensap’s family in Thailand is all fine; the tsunami thankfully did not harm them. The other good news: His collection of short stories, Sightseeing, which debuts...
This boxed set, complete with an easy-to-follow how-to booklet and 60 sheets of origami paper in perfect holiday colors, is the ideal gift for children of any age – the big ones included!
Review: <a...
A young adult tale about a unique bookstore where a mysterious host urges a motley group of neighborhood kids to choose the adventure behind one of three doors. While the premise is somewhat promising...
Through close readings of “nativist” Taiwanese literature of the 1960s and 1970s and of the Taiwanese New Cinema of the 1980s and 1990s, Yip offers a distinct national Taiwanese identity independent of historical Chinese...
For women of color, the fight for civil rights includes equitable reproductive rights. Both coercive sterilization and invasive long-term birth-control technologies have historically undermined the reproductive rights of women of color. Such practices continue...
A hybrid if I ever saw one: At the heart of the book is a sociological look at how food and ethnicity intersect in the immigrant world (think how our APA holiday tables might...
Mmmm, mmmm, good – the pictures alone will make you hungry. Who knew tofu could be toothsome on the page? You can even learn how to make tofu from scratch. After all...
A collection to share with your daughter – your sister, your cousin, even your mother. Thoughtful and eye-opening, this collection by women from many backgrounds recalls childhood experiences on when and how...
Contemporary American poets Bly and Hirschfield present English versions of works by the legendary Mirabai. Born in India in 1498, Mirabai is one of the original independent women of history, eschewing social morés to live a...
A worthy compendium to enhance the understanding and enjoyment of contemporary Japanese cinema, with authoritative profiles of 19 filmmakers, filmographies, and selected reviews. The final chapter includes a “New and Notable”-like section...
Nobel Prize-winner Naipaul continues Willie Chandran’s life story from 
Liu, a genetic scientist, arrives to visit her husband, Li, at his job site at the famed (or should that be infamous?) Three Gorges Dam Project...
From the author of Red Sorghum comes a monumental novel that follows 20th-century China through the lives of the eponymous woman and her nine children, none of them...
While English is not the native tongue of Saigon-born Dinh, his mastery of his adopted language is undeniable. Throughout this most eclectic collection of shorts – some beyond short, including one-sentence stories...