BookDragon Nonfiction

Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee, illustrated by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy

25 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Children/Picture Books, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

The girl power companion to Akira to Zoltán: Twenty-Six Men Who Changed the World celebrates the accomplishments of 26 admirable, brave, cheeky women from all over the world who refused to ever take 'no' for an answer and made their own herstory along the way! Just...

The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles by Scott Kurashige

20 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Japanese American, Nonfiction

How fitting to finish reading University of Michigan Professor Scott Kurashige's debut title on the 68th annual Day of Remembrance, which marks the anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt which led to the imprisonment of 120,000 Americans of...

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

18 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Audio, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

For most of the last hour (of 10+ hours) of listening to an effusive, lilting Chike Johnson read to me William Kamkwamba's phenomenal life story, I wore the goofiest grin on my face. Surely fellow drivers passing me by wondered what sort of gleeful idiot...

KING: A Comics Biography | The Special Edition by Ho Che Anderson

12 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Black/African American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

I thought I should mark Lincoln's birthday today with Ho Che Anderson's epic graphic biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his legendary "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. Eighteen years in the making,...

Our Grandparents: A Global Album by Maya Ajmera, Sheila Kinkade, Cynthia Pon, foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

04 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Pictures tell a thousand words ...

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

01 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Today begins Black History Month ...

Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge

22 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Black/African American, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction

Once upon a time not so long ago, Americans were willing to risk their very lives for the privilege to cast their votes. Since the 1970s, just over half of U.S. citizens eligible to vote have turned out for Presidential elections (with the exception of...

Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan, photographs by Gabriele Stabile

13 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Korean American, Nonfiction, Pan-Asian Pacific American

Don't even open this book without a very full stomach, because you'll be salivating almost immediately. Culinary bad-boy David Chang, creator of the impossible-to-get-in restaurants of the Momofuku chain (noodle bar, ssäm bar, ko, milk bar, and má pêche coming soon) surely knows how to feed. He's a Korean...

Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney

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

Just before the last election, legendary former Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca, then 82, wanted so much for Americans to take full advantage of the 15th Amendment ["The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United...

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin [in Christian Science Monitor]

07 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

Before I even finished the book, I had already preordered multiple copies of Gretchen Rubin’s latest title, The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun. Which...

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

05 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, African, Cambodian, Chinese American, Indian, Middle Eastern, Nonfiction, Southeast Asian

Half the Sky is a remarkable, life-changing book. It should be required reading for all adults (and more mature young adults), but especially for us overprivileged, lucky-solely-by-chance-of-birth citizens of the West. If there is ONE book you read this new year, let it be this...

SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

01 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Four years ago (could say five, actually, as we just entered 2010 – already!), University of Chicago economics professor Steven Levitt and noted journalist Stephen Dubner debuted with Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. That first duo-effort quickly became a mega-bestseller...

Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka by Adele Barker [in Christian Science Monitor]

30 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Sri Lankan

Three weeks after 9/11, University of Arizona professor Adele Barker arrived in Sri Lanka as a senior Fulbright Scholar to teach Russian literature, feminist literary theory, and American literature to select students at the University of Peradeniya. But her own education about the history and...

What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell

10 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Confession: This is not my favorite Malcolm Gladwell title. But that's not to say that I didn't enjoy parts of it more than probably 75% of the titles collected in this whole blog. Really. Gladwell is one phenomenal, erudite entertainer ...

Surviving the Angel of Death: The Story of a Mengele Twin in Auschwitz by Eva Mozes Kor and Lisa Rojany Buccieri

08 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in European, Jewish, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Eva Mozes Kor survived the Holocaust because she was an identical twin. After a grueling journey from her native Romania which eventually ended at the infamous Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, Eva and her twin Miriam were immediately separated from their parents and two older sisters....

Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne

01 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

Here's the assertion: "Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals." In a 2006 poll given to adults in 32 countries, the resulting U.S. statistics were just plain staggering to me ...

NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

22 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Absolute Favorites, Adult Readers, Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

For the past week, I've been talking nonstop about this book to friends, even those who don't have children. This is one of those titles that should be on every bookshelf, regardless of breeding status. Really. Because it's as much about relationships with all people,...

Blended Nation: Portraits and Interviews of Mixed-Race America, photographs and interviews by Mike Tauber, co-produced by Pamela Singh, foreword by Ann Curry, introduction by Rebecca Walker

19 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Hapa/Mixed-race, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

Stupendous and spectacular come immediately to mind when you look at this book. Not to mention a bit of "oof!" over its hefty size and weight – it's full of gravitas, after all! Mike Tauber's photographs are breathtaking, laid out simply to let the gorgeous...

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow

18 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction

If you haven't heard of Randy Pausch and experienced his delightful, heartbreaking, inspiring Last Lecture, surely you must: Click here for a comprehensive summary page created by Carnegie Mellon University where he was a professor before he passed away on July 25, 2008 of pancreatic...

Horizon Is Calling by Taro Yashima

15 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Japanese, Japanese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult Readers

The remarkable story begun in The New Sun continues in this second volume of Taro Yashima's graphic memoir, a strikingly simple combination of pictures and brief text that capture a man's journey away from his homeland. Long out of print since its 1947 first printing, Horizon...