The Favorite Daughter by Allen Say
11 Jun, by in Absolute Favorites, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Memoir
Well, goodness ...
BookDragon Memoir
The World Is a Carpet: Four Seasons in an Afghan Village by Anna Badkhen [in Christian Science Monitor]
30 May, by in Adult Readers, Afghan, British, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost
When you Google journalist Anna Badkhen, the one repeating line you’ll encounter is this: “Anna Badkhen writes about people in extremis.” To do so, she’s “spent [her] adult life in motion of one sort or another in the war-wrecked hinterlands of Central Asia, Arabia, Africa.” Badkhen...
Her: A Memoir by Christa Parravani
28 May, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
Here's another tiny-world overlap that convinces me that some higher power is directing my reading choices: first-time author Christa Parravani is married to Gulf War veteran author Anthony Swofford (Jarhead) – 'Tony' in Her – who appeared in the 2008 Oscar-nominated documentary, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which was directed by...
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan
06 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
At 24, Susannah Cahalan, life was just about perfect. She was a budding journalist working for the New York Post, she went home to a tiny but cozy Manhattan studio, and she had just started a promising new relationship. And then the madness set in, starting...
Jerusalem: A Family Portrait by Boaz Yakin and Nick Bertozzi, based on a story by Boaz Yakin and Moni Yakin, with art director Chris Sinderson
05 Apr, by in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Israeli, Jewish, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers
Some years back, during a discussion about what was then the latest tragic news coming out of the Middle East, a friend's mother softly remarked about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, "The absolute worst arguments happen among families." She (the widow of conservative rabbi) was referring specifically...
The Hakka Cookbook: Chinese Soul Food from Around the World by Linda Lau Anusasananan, art by Alan Lau, foreword by Martin Yan
05 Mar, by in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction
How come no one is out there cooking their way through all the recipes of an Asian cookbook and blogging about it, then making a movie with ...
A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu and Philippe Ôtié, translated by Edward Gauvin
28 Feb, by in Adult Readers, Chinese, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Translation, Young Adult Readers
No other word than epic describes this almost 700-page tome. It's epic in content: six decades of one ordinary man's extraordinary life, told through detailed, rich depictions in swirling black-and-white pen and ink that never seem to still. It's epic in context: 60 years of...
Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds by Ping Fu with MeiMei Fox [in Bookslut]
05 Feb, by in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost
This is not a spoiler: If you take a good look at the cover of the recent memoir Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds, you know the pages will deliver a happy ending ...
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid
14 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Lebanese, Lebanese American, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction
The late Anthony Shadid is back in the headlines today with happy news: the double-Pulitzer winner's resonating memoir is one of the autobiography finalists for the National Book Circle Critics awards for the publishing year of 2012. House of Stone recounts Shadid's restoration of his great-grandfather's home...
Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey by GB Tran
12 Jan, by in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, Young Adult Readers
Both the inside and outside covers here are exactly the same: a mostly well-ordered, three-generation family tree ...
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
05 Jan, by in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
The Japanese word, kokoro, means 'heart' ...
The Rose Hotel: A True-Life Novel by Rahimeh Andalibian
29 Nov, by in Adult Readers, Fiction, Iranian, Iranian American, Memoir
In the genre of memoirs (which includes based-on-a-true-story, autobiographical novels), I've noticed two distinct categories: the titles you read for the importance of the story, and the memoirs that also turn out to be fabulous examples of great literature. Psychologist Rahimeh Andalibian's writing debut represents the former;...
Little White Duck: A Childhood in China by Na Liu and Andrés Vera Martínez
21 Nov, by in Absolute Favorites, Chinese, Chinese American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction
Little White Duck is a visual feast that showcases the childhood memories of author Na Liu, and vibrantly enhanced by her artist husband Andrés Vera Martínez. Liu introduces herself with an adorably grinning "Ni Hao!," explaining that she was born in Zhifang, a suburb of...
A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return by Zeina Abirached, translated by Edward Gauvin
04 Oct, by in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Lebanese, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Translation, Young Adult Readers
Once again, I start from book's end, with the "About the Author" page which introduces war-child Zeina Abirached, whose first 10 years of life were spent surviving Beirut's civil war (1975-1990). As an adult, she happened upon a 1984 documentary that included "[a] woman whose...
The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad, translated by Ingrid Christophersen
16 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Afghan, Audio, European, Memoir, Nonfiction, Translation, Young Adult Readers
Okay, here we go again (see Kabul Beauty School below). We have a (fascinating, allegedly true) story, and then the (disturbing) story about the (now accuracy-challenged) story. Just after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, an award-winning Norwegian journalist emerges from six weeks of following...
Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez and Kristin Ohlson
14 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Afghan, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
Writing a memoir these days is dangerous business: you can be outed on Oprah as the worst liar, along with your publisher (James Frey, A Million Little Pieces), you can become infamous overnight for breaking the hearts of millions who not only trusted you but even gave...
Zoya’s Story: An Afghan Woman’s Struggle for Freedom by Zoya with John Follain and Rita Cristofari
09 Sep, by in Adult Readers, Afghan, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction
Zoya was just a year old when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. By age 4, she made a Russian woman soldier cry when she refused to accept her proffered chocolate. She was raised mostly by her devout grandmother, while both parents worked to...
Ru by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman [in Library Journal]
15 Aug, by in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Memoir, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American
* STARRED REVIEW The recipient of international accolades – including Canada’s coveted Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction (2010) for its original Canadian debut in French – this extraordinary first novel unfolds like ethereal poetry. The enigmatic title means “a small stream and, figuratively, a flow, a discharge—of...
NonNonBa by Shigeru Mizuki, translated by Jocelyne Allen, afterword by Kimie Imura
03 Aug, by in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Translation, Young Adult Readers
The work of Shigeru Mizuki, a legendary 90-year-old manga artist in his native Japan, arrived Stateside last year with the first-ever English translation of the award-winning Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, which draws on Mizuki's own experiences during World War II when he was drafted into Japan’s...
back alleys and urban landscapes by Michael Cho
30 Jul, by in Adult Readers, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir
You could flip through Michael Cho’s new graphic title in just a few minutes and pronounce it 'read.' But you'd be missing the whole point of the book ...