Audio Archives - Page 29 of 56

Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie [in Library Journal]

22 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVEIW Before Adichie became a mother herself, a childhood friend – the titular Ijeawele – asked Adichie to tell her how to raise her baby girl as a feminist. She begins here with two "Feminist Tools": 1. "I matter equally. Full stop"; and 2. "Can you...

The Warden’s Daughter by Jerry Spinelli [in School Library Journal]

16 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In 2017, Cammie O'Reilly is an elderly grandmother visiting her childhood home with her 12-year-old granddaughter after half a century away. While the outside still looks like the same "fortress from the Middle Ages," the inside now houses birds, butterflies, and turtles rather than the...

Selection Day by Aravind Adiga [in Library Journal]

15 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British Asian, Fiction, Indian, Repost, South Asian

*STARRED REVIEW Narrator Sartaj Garewal’s energy couldn’t be more rousingly infectious as he voices the unforgettable characters in Adiga’s (The White Tiger) latest. Raised in a Mumbai slum by a fiercely demanding father, the two Kumar brothers are destined to become cricket champions by the sheer...

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Laurie Frankel’s third novel is her most personal: as the mother of a transgender daughter, she writes what she knows with clarity, truth, and heart. Rosie and Penn already have four sons when Claude arrives. A remarkable child by all accounts, by age 3,...

Books for Living by Will Schwalbe [in Library Journal]

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

“Throughout my life I’ve looked to books for all sorts of reasons,” Will Schwalbe reveals, “to comfort me, to amuse me, to distract me, and to educate me.” Reading, discussing, and exalting books eased him and his late mother through the final months of her...

Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age by Amani Al-Khatahtbeh [in Library Journal]

25 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

On September 11, 2001, 9-year-old Amani Al-Khatahtbeh should have been enjoying Yearbook Day at her New Jersey elementary school. Instead, “[t]hat day has become crystallized in my memory,” Al-Kahatahtbeh writes – and narrates, “not just for how harrowingly scary it [was] – how we didn’t...

Whatever Happened to Interracial Love? by Kathleen Collins, foreword by Elizabeth Alexander [in Library Journal]

21 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Filmmaker/playwright/writer/activist Kathleen Collins was a multi-faceted, multi-talented pioneer who died at just 46. In 2014, indie distributor Milestone Films reintroduced her groundbreaking 1982 film, Losing Ground, one of the first movies directed by an African American woman. Beyond the celluloid, this posthumously published 16-story...

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran [in Library Journal]

20 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Indian American, Latina/o/x, Repost, South Asian American

*STARRED REVIEW Soli is still a teenager when she becomes pregnant during her journey from her native Mexican village to northern California. Partly joyous because she's love-struck, mostly nightmarish for what she must endure to survive, Soli enters the United States illegally and eventually finds a...

You Will Not Have My Hate by Antoine Leiris, translated by Sam Taylor [in Library Journal]

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

*STARRED REVIEW With elegant control, narrator Gildart Jackson embodies the words of French journalist Antoine Leiris, who bears witness to the murder of his wife, Hélène Muyal-Leiris, one of the victims of the November 13, 2015, terrorist attack at Paris's Bataclan Theatre. Three days later, Leiris...

The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian [in Library Journal]

14 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Armenian American, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Annalee Ahlberg is missing, but given her history of sleepwalking, her loved ones hold fast to the possibility of her return. While the investigation remains ongoing, the family adheres to some semblance of normalcy: husband Warren retreats to his work as a professor, 21-year-old daughter...

Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel [in Library Journal]

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

Once upon a time, Fern and Edgar were impoverished young rebels in love, proving their independence from the vast wealth of their respective families. Eventually, as their own children arrived, they settled into their roles as a "son and daughter of ease and plenty" in...

The Glorious Heresies by Gloria McInerney [in Library Journal]

14 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Irish, Repost

This may be Lisa McInerney’s debut novel, but the author has had plenty of practice chronicling daily life in her lauded blog, "Arse End of Ireland." Arriving stateside, already impressively awarded (2016 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction), Heresies melds wrenching reality with bitter comedy, taking...

The Devourers by Indra Das [in Library Journal]

13 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian, Indian American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American

Equal parts romance, fairy tale, horror, history, travelog, and treatise on the transformative power of storytelling, Indra Das’s debut combines a dual narrative about the developing relationship between two strangers with a fantastical tale set seemingly long ago. One December evening in Kolkata, Alok, a history...

Ladivine by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump [in Library Journal]

10 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Repost, Translation

Race, class, and identity all loom large in Marie NDiaye's (Three Strong Women) latest superb title as generations of mothers and daughters attempt to deny and reclaim one another with onerous consequences. The original Ladivine immigrates to France from an unnamed country, cleaning houses to...

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron [in Library Journal]

08 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW A full decade has passed since William Styron (Sophie's Choice, The Confessions of Nat Turner, As I Lay Dying) died at 81 in 2006. He might have died 21 years earlier by suicide, but he escaped that "near-violent dénouement." With raw, unflinching openness, Styron shared...

LaRose by Louise Erdrich [in Library Journal]

07 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW In rural North Dakota, Landreaux and Ravich are friends and neighbors, further bound by their wives who are half sisters. With a single gunshot, their lives change forever, when Landreaux aims at a buck at the edge of a field bordering both properties and...

Unbecoming by Jenny Downham [in School Library Journal]

03 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, British, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Mary, Caroline, and Katie are three very different generations in the same family; finding themselves unexpectedly under the same roof forces them to confront a complicated past that has kept them estranged for decades. Mary is the grandmother, newly widowed, fighting the dementia that...

Hag-Seed [Hogarth Shakespeare] by Margaret Atwood [in Library Journal]

16 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW In the fourth – and most entertaining – of the updated-by-famous-contemporary-authors "Hogarth Shakespeare" series (which also includes Jeannette Winterson's The Gap of Time, Howard Jacobson's Shylock Is My Name, and Anne Tyler's Vinegar Girl), The Tempest gets reset to an Ontario theater festival and a correctional...

The Mothers by Brit Bennet [in Library Journal]

11 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW The collective elder mothers of Upper Room Chapel open with a Greek chorus-esque recitation about happenings affecting their congregation. At the center of the chatter is Nadia, 17, who had "earned a wild reputation" since her mother committed suicide six months earlier; the Upper Room...

The Problem with Forever by Jennifer L. Armentrout [in School Library Journal]

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

Having survived too many violently nightmarish years in foster care, Mallory knows how lucky she is to finally have two unconditionally loving parents. After years of intensive therapy, she's ready to try something most teens expect to experience: her senior year of high school. Mallory's...

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