Audience Archives - Page 62 of 233

Miniatures: The Very Short Fiction of John Scalzi by John Scalzi [in Library Journal]

13 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

John Scalzi (Redshirts) explains in his snappy introduction, which he reads, that he has "two natural [writing] speeds": novel-long and "really short." This 18-piece collection showcases his "fast, punchy, and to the point"-shortest. For such a "miniature" book, it's got quite a full cast: Allyson...

Made for Love by Alissa Nutting [in Library Journal]

12 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

After 10 years of surveillance-heavy luxury living as wife to Byron, the founder of the ubiquitous Gogol Industries, Hazel flees to her widowed father's trailer to find her septuagenarian parent unpacking a sex doll. Despite the changing locations, Byron still looms, via a brain-implanted chip...

Cuba: My Revolution by Inverna Lockpez, illustrated by Dean Haspiel, colored by José Villarrubia

09 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Young Adult Readers

As the world welcomes 1959, 17-year-old Sonya is a hopeful young woman, despite the violent chaos that threatens her home city of Havana. Her boyfriend has already fled Cuba for Miami with his family, but Sonya is determined to contribute to the coming revolution by...

Everything Here Is Beautiful by Mira T. Lee [in Library Journal]

08 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, South American

Mira T. Lee’s impressive debut – both a celebration and mourning of the bond between two sisters, the younger afflicted with mental illness, the elder desperate to save her – deserves better aural interpretation. The full cast (in rare recognition, a who-was-who is added at...

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao + Author Interview [in The Booklist Reader]

07 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, South Asian, South Asian American

“I can’t think of a happier story”: Shobha Rao talks GIRLS BURN BRIGHTER After 15 years of writing and 15 years being rejected, Shobha Rao made her fiction debut two years ago with An Unrestored Woman, a collection of a dozen impeccable stories – savage and...

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward [in Library Journal]

06 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

In her second National Book Award-winning title, Jesmyn Ward returns to Bois Sauvage, MS, where her first NBA winner, Salvage the Bones, played out; Bones’ Skeetah and Eschelle appear momentarily here. Jojo, 13, and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their African American grandparents. Their drug-addicted mother...

Dust and Other Stories by Yi T’aejun, translated by Janet Poole [in Booklist]

05 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW During Japan’s brutal occupation of Korea (1910–45), marked by systematic suppression of the Korean language, culture, and identity, Yi T’aejun produced stories that were “considered among the best of his time.” Translator Janet Poole’s impressive introduction not only contextualizes Yi’s significance in the Korean canon...

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich [in Library Journal]

02 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

Twenty-six-year-old, four-months-pregnant Cedar Hawk Songmaker was adopted by Minneapolis liberals but has recently reconnected with her extended Ojibwe birth family. Reunion notwithstanding, the world is in dystopic collapse – evolution is in rapid reverse, the Church of the New Constitution has usurped control, the human...

Death Comes in through the Kitchen by Teresa Dovalpage [in Booklist]

01 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

Matt Sullivan, a San Diego–based, bilingual tabloid features writer, arrives in 2003 Havana with ring and wedding dress in hand for his Cuban fianceé, Yarmi, only to find her lifeless body in the bathtub. Considered charming, chatty, and caring by all who knew her, Yarmi,...

The Graybar Hotel by Curtis Dawkins [in Library Journal]

28 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

Although the "Son of Sam" law prohibited criminals from profiting from their crimes by writing books or creating other crime-based entertainment, the Supreme Court struck down the law in 1991 citing First Amendment violations. Decades later, Dawkins, a convicted murderer serving life without parole, received...

The Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon [in Library Journal]

27 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Jordanian, Middle Eastern, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

After introducing a stupendous community of left-behind stateside military wives in her debut collection, You Know When the Men Are Gone, Siobhan Fallon presents in her first novel two women who have accompanied their U.S. Army husbands to Jordan. Shared circumstances ease Cassie and Margaret...

A Life of Adventure and Delight by Akhil Sharma [in Library Journal]

26 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, Short Stories, South Asian American

Badly behaved Indian and Indian American men claim the spotlight in Sharma's first story collection, yet moments of unexpected humor and pathos save at least some of the men from utter disdain. In "Cosmopolitan," a recently single older man studies women's magazines to become a...

Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms by Robert Paul Weston, illustrated by Misa Saburi [in Shelf Awareness]

23 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Japanese, Japanese American, Repost

With a name that means "cherry blossom," Sakura's favorite time of the year is understandably spring, when her namesake blooms. Her grandmother gently nurtures her floral appreciation: "Together they sat/ in the shade of pink petals/...

GO by Kazuki Kaneshiro, translated by Takami Nieda [in Booklist]

22 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Japan and Korea’s centuries-long, combative history has long made Koreans in Japan second-class citizens. Kaneshiro, who is Korean Japanese, channels his own experiences into his teenage protagonist, Sugihara, a Japan-born-and-raised ethnic Korean. Sugihara decides to transfer into a Japanese high school after attending only Korean...

Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Louise Heal Kawai [in Library Journal]

21 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Fourth grader he may be, but our narrator is quite the sharp observer of his surroundings. His father is dead; his mother runs a "fortune-telling and that kind of stuff" salon. She's often the recipient of his unguarded bluntness: "If video games make you stupid,...

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin [in Library Journal]

20 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Jewish, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW That Aviva Grossman became infamous as "Florida's answer to Monica Lewinsky" provides a quick snapshot of why she's now living in small-town Maine as Jane Young. As a 20-year-old intern to Miami Congressman Aaron Levin, she not only had that affair with the married,...

In Black and White by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, translated by Phyllis I. Lyons [in Booklist]

19 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

“[W]e can’t distinguish what is the truthful artist and what is the lying social man.” For Jun'ichirō Tanizaki’s (The Gourmet Club, 2001) protagonist, the writer Mizuno, creating fiction using real-life details – he models a murder victim on a casual acquaintance, even inadvertently slipping in...

Between the Lines by Nikki Grimes [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry, Repost, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW "We live in the same city, go to the same school, but each of us has a different story," a student observes. "What we have in common is trying to figure out how to tell it." Welcome back to Mr. Ward's English class, introduced...

Trenton Makes by Tadzio Koelb [in Booklist]

15 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Cuban American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

WWII is over, and men return home, many to left-behind wives who became wholly self-supporting citizens out of necessity. For one such couple in Trenton, New Jersey, the postwar clash proves fatal, and the sole survivor completely reinvents herself. “My name is Abe Kunstler. I was...

Go Home! edited by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, foreword by Viet Thanh Nguyen [in Booklist]

13 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Poetry, Repost

The phrase, go home, encompasses polarizing intentions. It’s a reference to one’s safest place but can also be a hurled threat of exclusion. That polarity illuminates these 31 stories, essays, and poems by writers of diasporic Asian origin, compiled by self-described “Japanese-Chinese-Scottish-English-American” novelist Rowan Hisayo Buchanan...

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