Audience Archives - Page 3 of 233

I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee, translated by Anton Hur [in Booklist]

07 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

The cover boasts a recommendation from global phenom BTS’s leader RM. The PR materials tout its “runaway best-seller” status in its native South Korea, where mental illness remains stigmatized in a country with one of the world’s highest suicide rates. As a twentysomething social media director...

She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori [in Booklist]

06 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Multiple shes and cats populate this gratifying, slim novel-in-stories, which arrives with a decades-long history that undoubtedly underscores its timeless appeal. Makoto Shinkai launched his career as one of Japan’s most lauded animation and manga artists with the five-minute film, She and Her Cat (1999), later expanded...

Saha by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang [in Booklist]

05 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Town was once a fish-farm village, but it’s now internationally known for the corporation that aggressively expanded it into a bustling city-state. Here, class stratification is impermeable. Su is a Citizen. Do-kyung is a Saha, an inconsequential resident of the crumbling Saha Estates who...

All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End: The Cartoons of Charles Johnson by Charles Johnson [in Booklist]

04 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Prodigious National Book Award-winning, 1998 MacArthur “Genius” Charles Johnson is now in his 70s, having been repeatedly lauded in multiple genres. Perhaps not as well known is that Johnson began his literary career as a cartoonist (in high school!) – and never stopped drawing,...

When Everything Turned Blue by Alessandro Baronciani, translated by Carla Roncalli di Montorio [in Booklist]

03 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Italian, Nonethnic-specific, Translation, Uncategorized, Young Adult Readers

Marco, Chiara remembers of her close friend, “was not afraid ...

Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! by Art Spiegelman [in Booklist]

02 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Jewish, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Among the perennially relevant, permanently indisputable pioneers of the graphic genre is Art Spiegelman, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus remains a groundbreaking masterpiece. The provenance for that achievement is a 1972 three-page strip, included in this celebrated historical compilation, which was first published in 1978...

Three Assassins by Kotaro Isaka, translated by Sam Malissa [in Booklist]

01 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Kotaro Isaka has written dozens of award-winning, internationally bestselling novels and story collections. This, his third Anglophoned title, is notably narrated by versatile actor Adam Sims, who earnestly embodies former math teacher Suzuki, transformed by the senseless murder of his beloved wife. Her killer remains...

The Earthspinner by Anuradha Roy [in Booklist]

30 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, British Asian, Fiction, Indian, Repost, South Asian

*STARRED REVIEW Sarayu (just Sara at her English university) has a scholarship so tight that she dreams of telling her benefactor how “an extra hundred pounds would make not the tiniest difference to his life but would transform [hers].” She finds comfort – not to mention...

Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 3: From Macedonia to France by Fabien Toulmé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]

29 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW French comics creator Fabien Toulmé’s stupendous trilogy concludes Hakim’s epic three-year odyssey from war-torn Syria to finally reaching safety in France. Hannah Chute returns to deftly translate the third volume. To remind audiences of previous events – though reading in order is a gratifying must...

The Sense of Wonder by Matthew Salesses [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Repost

PEN/Faulkner finalist Matthew Salesses, a transracial Korean adoptee, again distills his own experiences with race and (e)masculinity for laudable literary inspiration in The Sense of Wonder. His intricate novel spotlights three basketball players at different points of their careers – starting out, at the pinnacle,...

The Scent of Burnt Flowers by Blitz Bazawule [in Booklist]

27 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Fiction, Ghanaian, Ghanaian American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW A faux pastor with a costume-shop collar and his not-yet wife; a mermaid with a silver guitar; a pill-popping, weak-hearted FBI agent who withstands gruesome torture; Sidney Poitier signing autographs for Russian soldiers ...

Any Other Family by Eleanor Brown [in Booklist]

26 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Eleanor Brown’s (The Weird Sisters) latest is certainly good, focusing on a “Very Special Family” of four siblings and their three sets of adoptive parents committed to keeping the children together through Sunday dinners, holidays, and now an all-family, two-week vacation. And here’s where...

Always Never by Jordi Lafebre, translated by Montana Kane [in Booklist]

25 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW That this story starts with “CHAPTER 20” will likely make readers pause to wonder if an earlier volume might have been missed. But worry not, and read on. A half-dozen pages later shows “CHAPTER 19,” revealing the narrative is moving in reverse. For 37 years,...

Diary of a Void by Emi Yagi, translated by David Boyd and Lucy North [in Booklist]

23 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Emi Yagi’s first novel, which won Japan’s Dazai Osamu Prize for the best debut fiction, is a brilliant exposé of discontented contemporary womanhood. Shibata’s professional life has been plagued by men – from sexual harassment at her last job to sexist roles at her current....

Kaleidoscope by Cecily Wong [in Booklist]

22 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Once upon a time, they seemed to be an ideal family: parents Hank and Karen Liu Brighton; their biracial daughters Morgan and Riley. They owned a small organic grocery store in Eugene, Oregon, then expanded into a globally sourced luxury goods empire called Kaleidoscope. First, Morgan...

Halina Filipina: A New Yorker in Manila by Arnold Arre [in Booklist]

21 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Indie publisher Tuttle showcases Filipino creator Arnold Arre, whose The Mythology Class (another Tuttle title) was the first comic to win the Philippine National Book Award. Renowned for his fantasy works, Arre describes Halina Filipina as a “no-frills relationship story” in an afterword describing the...

Death by Bubble Tea [L.A. Night Market Mystery 1] by Jennifer J. Chow [in Booklist]

20 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Jennifer J. Chow inaugurates her L.A. Night Market Mysteries (after the Winston Wong and Sassy Cat/Mimi Lee series), which turns two cousins into unlikely sleuths. Yale Yee is still mourning her mother’s death. She quit her family’s dim sum restaurant and found solace in a...

Let Me Be Frank: A Book about Women Who Dressed like Men to Do Shit They Weren’t Supposed to Do by Tracy Dawson [in Booklist]

19 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Both debut author Tracy Dawson and Kendra Hoffman, a narrator we need to hear more from, share notable improv experience, making them a superb pairing to inform and delight. Dawson highlights dozens of trailblazing women who dressed as men to gain access and opportunity. She...

Frizzy by Claribel A. Ortega, illustrated by Rose Bousamra [in Shelf Awareness]

18 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Caribbean American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Claribel A. Ortega (Witchlings) writes buoying books inspired by her Dominican heritage. She empathically takes on the timeless challenges of "good" and "bad" hair in Frizzy, gloriously depicted by debut illustrator Rose Bousamra. Going to the salon every Sunday is "without fail" the "worst part of the week"...

The Emma Project [The Rajes series, Book 4] by Sonali Dev [in Booklist]

17 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

Sonali Dev concludes her Jane Austen-inspired Rajes series, narrated once more by Soneela Nankani, who ensures familiar continuity throughout the quartet. Interestingly, as if Emma wasn’t mainstream enough, Dev includes a snarky summary early on: “Emma is an overindulged, albeit well-meaning, brat who is looking for...

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