Nonfiction Archives - Page 13 of 56

Celebrate Latinx Heritage Month with Cuban and Cuban American Literature [in The Booklist Reader]

Once upon a time, Cuba was an enigmatic, faraway place that conjured up images of I Love Lucy, history lessons about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and recurring headlines about Guantánamo. As far as books go, two loomed large: Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban, a multi-generational...

Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China by Xiaolu Guo [in Christian Science Monitor]

06 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British Asian, Chinese, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

'Nine Continents' is Chinese author Xiaolu Guo’s resonant memoir about leaving her past Audiences familiar with Chinese-born, British-transplanted Xiaolu Guo’s prolific output know she’s alchemized elements of her own life to produce her fiction and films. Her remote village upbringing and Beijing education inspired Twenty Fragments...

The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs [in Library Journal]

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

Nina Riggs died February 26, 2017. Cassandra Campbell gently narrates most of the work, until Kirby Heyborne takes over to read the afterword by Riggs’s husband, John, and shatters your heart. For a book about fatal diseases – Riggs was diagnosed at 37 with breast cancer;...

Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman by Anne Helen Petersen [in Library Journal]

02 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW The morning after Election Day 2016, Buzzfeed culture writer Anne Helen Petersen produced her essay, “This Is How Much America Hates Women.” Women who questioned, challenged, feuded with Trump – especially “nasty woman” Clinton– were degraded and dismissed. This unruly behavior – outside the “boundaries...

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...

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...

Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve by Lenora Chu [in Christian Science Monitor]

21 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost

'Little Soldiers' examines the Chinese education system from the inside Born in Philadelphia, reared in a Houston suburb, Stanford- and Columbia-educated, journalist Lenora Chu has a resume that – at first glance – looks very American. But her “connection to China came by birthright”: she’s “a...

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...

Cuba on the Verge: 12 Writers on Continuity and Change in Havana and Across the Country edited by Leila Guerriero [in Booklist]

18 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Cuban, Latin American, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Since Obama’s 2014 visit reestablishing ties between the U.S. and Cuba, American travelers have had the long-lost opportunity for direct exploration, but there are “no easy answers,” warns Argentinian journalist Leila Guerriero at the start of her anthology of stupendously astute essays. Half are...

The Bookshop on the Corner: 12(-ish) Novels about Bookstores [in The Booklist Reader]

14 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Australian, British, European, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Sometimes – way too often, these days – reality is just, well, too real. So into these beckoning pages I retreat. Novels about bookstores are ultra-alluring, since the possibility of escapist respite is virtually limitless. To follow are a dozen recent titles celebrating those literary...

Letters to Memory by Karen Tei Yamashita [in Christian Science Monitor]

13 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

'Letters to Memory' tells the story of author Karen Tei Yamashita's World War II internment “I have no formed definition of this project except an intuition that you would listen and be attentive and somehow understand,” Karen Tei Yamashita writes in Letters to Memory, her sagacious follow-up...

Favorite Diverse Children’s Books of 2016 [in Utah Journal of Literacy]

07 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Bangladeshi American, Black/African American, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Caribbean American, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Indian American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Lists, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American, Persian, Persian American, Repost, South Asian American, Verse Novel/Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

ABSTRACT These books feature diverse characters who – in a multiplicity of ways – suffer, learn, and generally triumph in their differences. Varying in genre from picture book to poetry, in setting from Kenya to California, and in ethnic focus from Muslim Bangladeshi to Ojibway/Anishinaaabe (Canadian...

Series: Leaving My Homeland

31 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Afghan, African, Children/Picture Books, Iraqi, Nonfiction, Syrian

A Refugee's Journey from Afghanistan by Helen Mason A Refugee's Journey from the Democratic Republic of the Congo by Ellen Rodger A Refugee's Journey from Iraq by Ellen Rodger A Refugee's Journey from Syria by Helen Mason Working with members of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University in Toronto,...

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...

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."...

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...

This Is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature, edited by Ahdaf Soueif and Omar Robert Hamilton [in Booklist]

11 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Commemorating 10 extraordinary years of PalFest, the Palestine Festival of Literature, mother-son cofounders Soueif (Cairo: Memoir of a City Transformed, 2014) and Hamilton (The City Always Wins, 2017) gathered 47 literary luminaries to create this essential testimony, including Suad Amiry, J. M. Coetzee, Teju...

Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship by Michelle Kuo [in Christian Science Monitor]

10 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

'Reading with Patrick' tells of a teacher's extraordinary journey Pontificating with superlatives only halfway through the calendar year might prove short-sighted, but risking humiliated inaccuracy seems to be a negligible consequence for claiming that Reading with Patrick could be the most affecting book you’ll read this...

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...

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