BookDragon Memoir

The World Is Bigger Now: An American Journalist’s Release from Captivity in North Korea by Euna Lee with Lisa Dickey

16 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, North Korean

In 2009, journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling made headlines around the world, first for being kidnapped by North Korean border guards, then five months later being miraculously released. Such international reverberating news usually begets a book – in this case, two: both Lee and Ling released...

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite by Suki Kim

12 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Korean, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, North Korean

Over a decade has passed since a Suki Kim title landed on my shelves. That she's been repeatedly crossing the "immutable border" into North Korea since 2002 – just months after George W. Bush dubbed the closed country as one of the "axis of evil"...

Take This Man: A Memoir by Brando Skyhorse

09 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction

Well, of course, the year I'm mostly out of DC, Brando Skyhorse is the Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Residence at George Washington University. Not that I have any affiliation there now (only a leftover GWU ID from when I took a couple of classes 3.5 decades...

Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee – A Look Inside North Korea by Jang Jin-Sung, translated by Shirley Lee

05 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, North Korean, Translation

While the majority of the nonfiction books about North Korea have focused on the extreme deprivation and unbearable suffering of the common citizen – for example, labor camps and slave children born to prisoners in Blaine Harden's Escape from Camp 14, numerous "ordinary lives" in Barbara Demick's...

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

02 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, South Asian American

Ah finally, I'm fully caught up with the good doc, having read each of Atul Gawande’s four bestsellers in published order. And how grateful am I to have followed through so methodically, because all that 'homework' certainly made this, his latest, an even fuller read. Here's...

Discontent and Its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London by Mohsin Hamid [in Christian Science Monitor]

26 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, British, British Asian, Memoir, Nonfiction, Pakistani, Repost, South Asian

'Civilization and its Discontents' highlights the intertwined Pakistani, British, and American roots of Mohsin Hamid Thanks to Haruki Murakami, we won't have to wait as long for Mohsin Hamid’s future novels. Hamid's acclaimed first two, Moth Smoke and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, took seven years each. His...

Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande

26 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, South Asian American

"This is a book about performance in medicine," Atul Gawande writes in the "Introduction" of his second bestselling title (he's got four total thus far – and counting!). "In medicine, as in any profession, we must grapple with systems, resources, circumstances, people – and our own...

The Lost Book of Mormon: A Journey Through the Mythic Lands of Nephi, Zarahemla, and Kansas City, Missouri by Avi Steinberg

20 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Jewish, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

In an attempt to better understand the unfamiliar territory in which I find myself domiciled through June 2016 (yes, I'm counting), I've been reading quite a few titles that hopefully will provide insight into the mindset of some of our would-be neighbors. Many of those books...

Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande

15 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, South Asian American

Atul Gawande’s latest (and fourth) book, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, has been on countless 2014 'best-of' lists. His three previous titles have all been bestsellers, he's a 1987 Rhodes Scholar, a 2006 MacArthur "Genius" Fellow, and a TED favorite. He's also a...

In a Rocket Made of Ice: Among the Children of Wat Opot by Gail Gutradt, with a foreword by Dr. Paul Farmer

12 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Cambodian, Jewish, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Gail Gutradt is not a journalist. She is not a nurse or doctor, and actually has no training in the medical profession. She is not a mother. She is not a Buddhist. She speaks very little Khmer. For everything she is not, Gutradt is a...

Can’t we talk about something more pleasant? A Memoir by Roz Chast

09 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Jewish, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

George and Elizabeth Chast were born 10 days apart in 1912. They grew up two blocks from each other in East Harlem, and were in the same fifth grade class. "They never dated, much less anything else'd, anyone besides each other." They married in 1938. Their...

Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxane Gay

24 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Caribbean American, Fiction, Haitian, Haitian American, Memoir, Nonfiction

If I were to choose the one book that affected me most this year – the one that ran the entire spectrum from giddiest to maddest, from eye-opening in wonder to eye-scrunching in horror – this is it. Bad Feminist has forever changed the way I read,...

Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What’s a Daughter to Do? A Memoir (Sort Of) by Elaine Lui

02 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Hong Kongese, Memoir, Nonfiction

Toronto-based Elaine Lui, better known as Lainey, has built one of the most powerful careers in entertainment by harvesting gossip; her immensely successful blog, LaineyGossips, is a leading industry standard, she's seen regularly on Canadian screens (and beyond) as a reporter for etalk and co-host...

Author Interview: Ava Chin [in Bloom]

26 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audience, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Genre, Memoir, Nonfiction, Origin/Ethnic Background, Repost

Thanksgiving approach-eth! Don’t you want to know what will be on the Urban Forager’s table? Read on! Ava Chin, author of recently published Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal, chats about family, motherhood, writing, and the art of foraging – complete with...

Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal by Ava Chin + Author Profile [in Bloom]

24 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Eating Wildly for the Belly and Soul with Ava Chin These days, Ava Chin is living her happy beginnings: she’s the mother to an energetic toddler, wife to the man of her dreams, professor of creative nonfiction and journalism at her undergrad alma mater, and – whenever...

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

19 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Indian American, Memoir, Nonfiction, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

Confession: I've actually never seen The Mindy Project; I've never watched an episode of The Office (for which Kaling was a writer and star for some eight seasons). Yes, I live under a rock (surrounded by a lot of books). But I have ventured out enough to have seen Kaling in...

Heritage by Sean Brock, photographs by Peter Frank Edwards

13 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Thanksgiving is just two weeks away ...

In the Body of the World by Eve Ensler

11 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

To not stick this one in your ears would be such the missed opportunity. At just over four hours, this is undoubtedly longer than your usual theater performance, but with Eve Ensler herself so passionately narrating, her memoir transforms into a spectacular aural extravaganza. At 57, the woman...

El Deafo by Cece Bell, color by David Lasky

07 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

You might not recognize her name immediately, but if you click here (and happen to have children of a certain age, and/or like to browse the kiddie sections of libraries and bookstores), you'll definitely recognize Cece Bell’s literally artful creations. This, her first graphic title, is...

Deer Hunting in Paris: A Memoir of God, Guns, and Game Meat by Paula Young Lee + Author Interview [in Bookslut]

03 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

The title of Paula Young Lee's latest book (her fifth) is Deer Hunting in Paris. The subtitle, which announces it's a memoir (her first), includes two very loaded words, "God" and "Guns." The sub-subtitle explains further: "How a preacher's daughter refuses to get married, travels...