Nonfiction Archives - Page 10 of 56

Notes on a Shipwreck: A Story of Refugees, Borders, and Hope by Davide Enia, translated by Antony Shugaar [in Christian Science Monitor]

08 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, European, Italian, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Whom to save, whom to let perish? The rescuers of refugees washing up on the Italian island of Lampedusa face an impossible choice, as memoirist and playwright Davide Enia describes in Notes on a Shipwreck: A Story of Refugees, Borders, and Hope “Calculate. It’s all you can...

Five More to Go: Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women [in The Booklist Reader]

06 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Japanese, Korean, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Translation

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See Known for her Chinese and Chinese American sagas, mega-bestselling author Lisa See (The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, 2017) travels across the Yellow Sea to the tiny southern Korean island of Jeju to create a stupendous multi-generational family saga...

Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas [in Library Journal]

11 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Filipina/o American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian American

"After twenty-five years of living illegally in a county that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom." When Pulitzer Prize-winning Jose Antonio Vargas declared his undocumented status in 2011, Bill O'Reilly labeled him "the...

First Comes Marriage: My Not-So-Typical American Love Story by Huda Al-Marashi [in Booklist]

05 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Iraqi, Iraqi American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Writer Huda Al-Marashi and narrator Jeed Saddy make their respective debuts in a captivating memoir about a marriage that’s not so much arranged but destined. Al-Marashi is 6 when she meets Hadi, the son of family friends. She’s 9 as she watches him pretend-wed her 4-year-old...

American Like Me: Reflections on Life between Cultures by America Ferrera [in Booklist]

04 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab American, Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Filipina/o American, Haitian American, Hawaiian, Indian African, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Puerto Rican, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW “I believe that culture shapes identity and defines possibility; that it teaches us who we are, what to believe, and how to dream.” Actor-activist America Ferrera in her editorial and authorial debut, highlights her distinct Honduran American identity and invites 31 others she “deeply...

Piero by Edmond Baudoin, translated by Matt Madden [in Booklist]

01 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, French, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Twenty years since its original French publication, Edmond Baudoin’s autobiographical homage to his older brother, Piero, and their shared childhood makes its English-language debut, admiringly translated by cartoonist Matt Madden. Growing up between Nice, where their father worked, and Villars-sur-Var (“our Mom’s village, our village”),...

Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution by Helen Zia [in Christian Science Monitor]

24 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Nonfiction, Repost

Last Boat Out of Shanghai has four stories at once personal and universal As the child of two refugees, Helen Zia can speak to the effects of displacement, separation, and the personal costs of survival, adaptation, and reinvention. As an advocate for Asian American and other minority communities,...

Blame This on the Boogie by Rina Ayuyang [in Booklist]

23 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Young Adult Readers

"Beyond this door,” Rina Ayuyang warns as she guides readers to her suburban Pittsburgh childhood home, “lies a story of dread and woe, despair and sadness.” But no, turn the page, and amid technicolor walls, carpets, and toys strewn everywhere, she admits, “I’m kidding. It’s...

Librarians Unite! 12 Tales of Librarian Badassery [in The Booklist Reader]

18 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab, British, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Korean, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

In just over a week, Seattle’s population will temporarily expand with tens of thousands of librarians (and other literary obsessives). Talk about a convergence of brains, guts, dedication, faith – and unconditional love of knowledge! Because that’s what it takes to be a librarian in...

We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices: Words and Images of Hope edited by Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson [in Shelf Awareness]

29 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Children/Picture Books, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Poetry, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Inspired by their 7-year-old great-niece's distress over the 2016 elections, Just Us Books’ co-founders Wade Hudson and Cheryl Willis Hudson created We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices as a contemporary antidote for fear. Recalling their dangerous experiences growing up in the 1950s and...

This Is Cuba: An American Journalist under Castro’s Shadow by David Ariosto [in Booklist]

27 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

For a self-described “young American photojournalist who then boasted only pidgin Spanish,” David Ariosto’s arrival in Havana in 2009 on assignment for CNN was “the chance of a lifetime.” Determined to be “somehow different from those pink-faced tourists,” he’s quickly reduced to an epithet, yuma – street...

Buried Lives: The Enslaved People of George Washington’s Mount Vernon by Carla Killough McClafferty [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

When he was just 11 years old, George Washington inherited ownership of 10 human beings. By the time he died in 1799, Washington's estate on the Potomac River, Mount Vernon, was home to 317 enslaved African American men, women, and children: 123 people owned by...

I Should Have Honor: A Memoir of Hope and Pride in Pakistan by Khalida Brodi [in Library Journal]

06 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonfiction, Pakistani, Pakistani American, Repost, South Asian, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

When she was 25, Forbes named Khalida Brohi to its 2014 "30 Under 30: Social Entrepreneurs" list for founding Sughar Foundation, which trains and empowers rural Pakistani women. Brohi makes both her authorial and performance debuts as she chronicles her journey from a rural Pakistani...

Five More to Go: Alice Stephens’ Famous Adopted People [in The Booklist Reader]

02 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Nonfiction, North Korean, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Famous Adopted People by Alice Stephens “Everyone, it seems, is telling our story but us,” observes Lisa Pearl, the Korean-born, Bethesda, Maryland-raised transracial adoptee protagonist in Alice Stephens’ recent October debut. The author, who describes herself as being “among the first generation of transnational, interracial adoptees,”...

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung [in Christian Science Monitor]

01 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Korean, Korean American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

'All You Can Ever Know' is a sensitive examination of transracial adoption Here’s a memoir by a transracial adoptee about being a transracial adoptee – and unless you're a transracial adoptee yourself, you're probably thinking, “eh, I'll pass.” And that would surely be a mistake. Because...

Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” by Zora Neale Hurston [in Library Journal]

30 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Biography, Black/African American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Versatile, seasoned narrator Robin Miles is as comfortable narrating literary historic context as she is effortlessly adopting the vernacular patois of an octogenarian former slave. Published almost 90 years after its completion, Zora Neale Hurston’s (Their Eyes Were Watching God) presentation of Oluale Kossula,...

Mandela and the General by John Carlin, illustrated by Oriol Malet [in Booklist]

19 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, British, European, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Repost, South African, Young Adult Readers

As South Africa correspondent for London’s The Independent (1989–95), John Carlin draws on his personal trove of interviews and reportage to highlight the pivotal moment of world-affecting history when Nelson Mandela and General Constand Viljoen saved their newly apartheid-free country from bloody collapse. Mandela’s 1990 release...

Tales from la Vida: A Latinx Comics Anthology edited by Frederick Luis Aldama [in Booklist]

30 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Nonfiction, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

The latest title in Mad Creek’s impressive Latinographix series showcases 80-plus contributions from the flourishing Latinx graphic community. Creators were prompted “to reflect upon the most significant moments of their lives,” rendering seven sections that explore language, coming-of-age, mythology, identity, heritage, self-image, and pop culture. The...

The Home That Was Our Country: A Memoir of Syria by Alia Malek [in Library Journal]

26 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Arab, Arab American, Audio, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Repost, Syrian, Syrian American

American by birth, Syrian by parentage, journalist and civil rights lawyer Alia Malek (A Country Called Amreeka) has the cultural and linguistic fluency to be both insider and outsider in either country. Through four generations of extended family stories – from her wealthy businessman great-grandfather...

Our Woman in Havana: Reporting Castro’s Cuba by Sarah Rainsford [in Booklist]

14 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, Cuban, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

Two timely books titled Our Woman in Havana hit shelves this year: a memoir by U.S. diplomat Vicki Huddleston and this account by former BBC Cuba correspondent (2011-2014) Rainsford, who was “guided by the writing of another English visitor seduced by Havana,” novelist Graham Greene. A...

BookDragon Nonfiction