Audio Archives - Page 28 of 56

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay [in Library Journal]

29 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Haitian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW For such a vulnerable, raw memoir, no one but the author could voice the breathtaking revelations, brutal truths, and profound knowledge contained here. “Every body has a story and a history,” Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist, Difficult Women) begins. Gay stands 6'3"; at her heaviest, she...

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays by Scaachi Koul [in Library Journal]

28 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Certain authors are their own best narrators – even more true for memoirs (think Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Luvvie Ajayi). Here, Scaachi Koul’s accomplished reading comes with the bonus of regular vocal interjections from her father. With this first book, a collection of smart, sassy, revealing...

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy [in Library Journal]

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

Arundhati Roy’s 1997 Man Booker Prize-winning debut, The God of Small Things, made her an international superstar. Twenty years later, Delhi-based Roy is an activist power house – feted and feared – with an expansive list of nonfiction credits; her second novel should placate her...

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie [in Library Journal]

26 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW With his uniquely sing-songy cadence, almost-chuckles, and uncontainable tears, Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian) gives a raw, superb performance. No one else could have narrated the stories of his difficult youth, his lifesaving education, his struggles between familial obligations...

Rich People Problems [Crazy Rich Asians 3] by Kevin Kwan [in Library Journal]

25 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hong Kongese, Repost, Singaporean, Singaporean American, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Kevin Kwan’s third volume continues to expose – albeit with plenty of schadenfreudian humor – the outrageous excesses and over-the-top machinations that began with his debut, Crazy Rich Asians (currently in highly anticipated celluloid production). Lydia Look, who voiced book two, China Rich Girlfriend,...

Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki [in Library Journal]

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

Lady Daniels is supposed to be writing a memoir about raising her now-18-year-old mute son Seth, who communicates just fine using American Sign Language (ASL) and rapid typing on various screens. Lady’s toddler needs child care, however – Lady has recently pushed hubby out –...

Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy by Anne Lamott [in Library Journal]

19 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Most of Anne Lamott’s nonfiction titles are generally variations on a theme: be kind – to yourself, to others – and you’ll make the world a better place. Somehow, though, each book arrives sounding fresh and new – and effective. That Lamott narrates almost all...

The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Narrator Xe Sands delivers this Book with control, even detachment: the almost languid tone chillingly amplifies the hideous near-future Yuknavitch exposes in her highly anticipated follow-up to The Small Backs of Children. At 49, Christine is in her “last year until ascension,” an anachronistic term that...

Long Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan [in Library Journal]

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

“This was a long time ago,” Jennifer Finney Boylan (She’s Not There) begins – August 1980, more specifically. “[N]one of us now are the people we were then.” Thirty-five years later, the college friends who trespassed into the boarded-up Eastern State Penitentiary are now “ghosts:...

Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life by Christine Hyung-Oak Lee [in Library Journal]

29 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Ten years ago, Lee was married to her college boyfriend, living in Berkeley, and working as the human resources director at a small company. On New Year’s Eve 2006, Lee suffered a stroke. She was 33. She would spend the better part of a decade...

The Door by Magda Szabó, translated by Len Rix [in Library Journal]

28 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Originally published in 1987, The Door is one of the few titles available in English by the late Magda Szabó (1917–2007), considered one of if not the most prominent Hungarian writer. The aural version makes its roundabout debut this year, after two Anglophone translations,...

Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki, translated by Eriko Sugita [in Library Journal]

21 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Japanese, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation

Think Marie Kondo (The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up) on steroids: fellow Japanese lifestyle (albeit reluctant) guru Fumio Sasaki shed 95 percent of his stuff. "There's happiness in having less," his here's-why-and-how primer begins. "That's why it's time to say good-bye to all our extra things."...

The Idiot by Elif Batuman [in Library Journal]

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

Batuman makes her fiction debut already a literary darling: a New Yorker staff writer since 2010 and the author of a much-adored essay collection, The Possessed, about the pleasurable intricacies of reading Russian literature. The year is 1995, and Turkish American 18-year-old Selin enters Harvard. She...

Sonora by Hannah Lillith Assadi [in Library Journal]

18 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Palestinian American, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Debut novelist Hannah Lillith Assadi's protagonist, like the author herself, is the daughter of a Palestinian refugee father and Israeli Jewish mother. Ahlam comes of age in the Arizona desert, physically safe from war but damaged by the bitter fighting between her parents that too...

Once We Were Sisters: A Memoir by Sheila Kohler [in Library Journal]

14 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Sheila Kohler’s crisp, clipped voice is ideal for her memoir, which begins with references to Nelson Mandela, Afrikaners, and various family members that all announce her South African heritage. Although she left her birth country at 17, Kohler (Cracks; Crossways) has retained her clear, concise...

One of the Boys by Daniel Magariel [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW At just three-and-a-half hours, Daniel Magariel's debut novel should be a quick listen – time-wise, that's obviously true – but be warned: this affecting, hypnotic tragedy will linger and haunt long after. Narrator Gibson Frazier – pitch-perfect in his characterization of the two abused brothers...

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay [in Library Journal]

12 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Experienced narrator Robin Miles is the ideal proxy for Gay's difficult women, many of whom are not so much difficult as living lives that have been made difficult, onerous, or tragic by others. Embodying various ages, ethnicities, and backgrounds, Miles refreshes and adapts her...

Letters to a Young Muslim by Omar Saif Ghobash [in Library Journal]

07 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Now older than his 43-year-old father was when he died in a 1977 terrorist attack, Omar Saif Ghobash writes his Letters to his two young sons as a matter of permanent record. As the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to Russia (Ghobash's father was Arab, his...

Road Tripping with Eclectic Audiobooks [in The Booklist Reader]

06 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Lists, Repost

Once upon a time, I was wary of audiobooks; I didn't think they were "real" reading. How wrong I was! Two sparked an obsession: Feed by M.T. Anderson, read by David Aaron Baker, with a full production complete with brain-fed ads and instant messages before I even knew...

Ill Will by Dan Chaon [in Library Journal]

03 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

At 15 hours to find out whodunit (you'll probably guess early), howdunit (you'll need to wait for it), whydunit (well…? no spoilers!), we're talking commitment. A full cast (why don't producers reveal who's who?), including veterans Ari Fliakos and Edoardo Ballerini, with Scott Aiello, Michael...

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