Audience Archives - Page 75 of 233

Are You an Echo?: The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko by David Jacobson, illustrated by Toshikado Hajiri, translated by Sally Ito and Michiko Tsuboi

23 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Japanese, Japanese American, Middle Grade Readers, Poetry

Japan's latest tsunami warnings were just recently lifted, saving countless citizens from another Fukushima disaster-like tragedy which killed over 20,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless in March 2011. Amidst the apocalyptic aftermath, human goodness prevailed. Five years ago, a single poem managed to reach millions...

How To Party with an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings

10 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Hawaiian, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Mele, single mother of Ellie, joined the San Francisco Mother's Club (SFMC) to be matched with the perfect playgroup, something that never happened. Two years later, she's part of a rogue, "laughing, sh*t-talking, texting, even talking on the phone" fivesome that came together organically at...

The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke, translated by Carlos Rojas [in Library Journal]

07 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Yan Lianke's latest translated-into-English title offers multiple rewarding options. As straightforward narrative, it follows the astounding transformation of Explosion, a rural mountain village, into a "megalopolis" through the entangled lives of the Kong family's four sons – a teacher, a politician, a soldier, and...

Remembering 1942 and Other Chinese Stories by Liu Zhenyun, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin [in Booklist]

03 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

Mao Dun Award–winning novelist Liu Zhenyun (The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon, 2015) adroitly confronts Very Big Topics – family, education, work, bureaucracy, the military, history – in his first translated-into-English story collection. “Tofu” exposes the numbing tribulations of being a poor family...

Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada, translated by Susan Bernofsky [in Booklist]

02 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Tokyo-born, Berlin-domiciled Yoko Tawada (Facing the Bridge, 2007) returns with another fantastical and entertaining novel that combines a broken family saga, socio-political-environmental enlightenment, a treatise on writing, and bitingly well-placed satire. Seamlessly translated from German by the award-winning Susan Bernofsky, Memoirs of a Polar Bear introduces...

The Art of Confidence by Wendy Lee [in Booklist]

01 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese, Taiwanese American

An ephemeral, atmospheric painting, Elegy, is at the core of Wendy Lee’s third and most ambitious novel (Happy Family, 2008; Across a Green Ocean, 2015). An unknown, 30-year-sojourning Chinese artist is paid a pittance to recreate a missing canvas. A desperate New York gallery owner...

Everything Belongs to Us by Yoojin Grace Wuertz [in Booklist]

31 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Repost

As explosive growth transforms 1970s South Korea into an international powerhouse, sociopolitical upheaval becomes unavoidable in daily life. Into the maelstrom of such spectacular change, first-novelist Grace Yoojin Wuertz – Seoul-born, U.S.-raised, Yale- and NYU-degreed – drops two women onto the elite campus of Seoul...

Author Interview: Vanessa Hua [in Bloom]

25 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

On Secrets and the Long, Long Process Journalist Vanessa Hua spent the last couple of decades filing articles from around the globe – China and Ecuador, Burma and Panama, and beyond – which surely gave her the worldly familiarity that resonates throughout her fiction debut, Deceit...

Dear Fang, With Love by Rufi Thorpe

21 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Lucas and Katya spend a year in love as boarding school seniors and have a baby. Their parting leaves Lucas estranged throughout daughter Vera’s childhood; he eventually graduates to being a weekend dad. At 16, Vera goes to a party she shouldn’t have, which ends with...

How to Set a Fire and Why by Jesse Ball [in Library Journal]

20 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Morbid fascination will keep listeners riveted to Jesse Ball’s (A Cure for Suicide) shocking new novel as teenager Lucia Stanton chronicles –with unnerving detachment – her troubled life through a collage of blunt paragraphs, random lists, outrageous predictions, and a "pamphlet" bearing the book's...

Sarong Party Girls by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan [in Library Journal]

19 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Singaporean, Singaporean American, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

Jazzy is still single at almost 27. When her BFF-quartet lost Sher to the dream they all aspire to – marrying an "ang moh," a wealthy Western expat, because local Singaporean men "are a bit fussy" about "older girls" – Jazzy decides she needs a...

Vinegar Girl [Hogarth Shakespeare] by Anne Tyler [in Library Journal]

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

The third installment of the Hogarth Shakespeare series transfers the 16th-century comedy The Taming of the Shew, set in Padua, Italy, to a contemporary Baltimore neighborhood, otherwise known as beloved Pulitzer-Prized Anne Tyler-territory. The Bard's obdurate, would-be lovers Katherina and Petruchio become Kate Battista, a...

A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi [in Library Journal]

17 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Afghan, Afghan American, Audio, Fiction, Repost

Accused of brutally murdering her husband, Zeba lands in jail. A mother of four, wife to Kamal, and obedient to Kamal's family, Zeba can't remember what happened. She remains silently resigned, realizing that in contemporary Afghanistan, just being a woman is enough to threaten not...

Demon (Volume 1) by Jason Shiga

14 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese American

Warning first: This is NOT NOT NOT for kids. For us old folks, however ...

A Family Is a Family Is a Family by Sara O’Leary, illustrated by Qin Leng

11 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific

Talking about families can sometimes be daunting for kids, especially when you can't check off those expected, so-called "traditional" boxes on who's who of your bestest loved ones. Sitting in her classroom discussing "what we thought made our family special," one little girl is not...

Kizumonogatari: Wound Tale by Nisioisin, translated by Ko Ransom [in School Library Journal]

06 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

As spring break begins, 17-year-old loner Araragi makes his only friend – and loses his humanity. Araragi is befuddled by class president Hanekawa's sudden attention, and his conversation with her about a vampire sighting doesn't sink in until he helps a dying limbless woman, only...

Author Interview: Pamela Erens [in Bloom]

04 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Fiction, Haitian, Haitian American, Jewish, Korean American, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

While Pamela Erens might not yet be a household-name author, she’s hardly a stranger to literary recognition. Her 2007 debut, The Understory – about a solitary, unemployed lawyer who’s about to lose his home – was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the...

The Pier Falls and Other Stories by Mark Haddon [in Library Journal]

28 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Wildly varying in topics from a seaside disaster in the titular opening story to an unlikely relationship that develops between an older man and the suicide attemptee he rescues in "The Weir," Mark Haddon’s nine stories here are thematically linked through a common sense...

The Silent Dead [Reiko Himekawa, Book 1] by Tetsuya Honda, translated by Giles Murray [in Library Journal]

23 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Already the star of an ongoing, bestselling series in Japan (on both page and screen), Det. Reiko Himekawa makes her English-translation debut, outsmarting her arrogant male colleagues by listening to the dead. At 29, Reiko is young to be a lieutenant in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police's...

Kurosawa’s Rashomon: A Vanished City, a Lost Brother, and the Voice Inside His Most Iconic Films by Paul Anderer [in Library Journal]

22 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Japanese, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

When Rashomon won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion in September 1950, the world embraced its director, Akira Kurosawa (1910–98), who quickly gained unrivaled prominence – Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg are a few of his self-declared disciples. Convinced “that Westerners...

BookDragon Audience