MAO: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday [in AsianWeek]
03 Nov, by in Adult Readers, Biography, British Asian, Chinese, Nonfiction, Repost
From the bestselling author of Wild Swans (together with a well-known academic), comes an unflinching look at one of the most powerful, influential figures of the 20th-century, not to mention one of the most...
If you’ve got half an hour, you’ve got a meal. Now hurry up and feed me!
Review: 
Award-winning Haitian American writer 
With the relaxing of government controls in the 1980s, Taiwanese filmmakers quickly established themselves internationally. Four directors, Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Ang Lee (whom we claim as one of our APA own),...
Marking the 60th anniversary of that fateful August 6th morning comes a richly detailed examination of the three weeks that led up to the Hiroshima bombing. While it reads like a riveting novel – scientists, politicians,...
Here’s the everyperson – or should that be every non-Asian person’s? – guide to debunking the Asian mystique, written by a non-APA with 15-plus years experience of writing about Asia. While the aware APA...
Leong examines the lives of this trio – author of The Good Earth, the APA actress of all time, and the Wellesley-educated wife of Chiang Kai-shek – as the most prominent women associated with...
Good Morning America viewers, with a panel of bestselling authors, chose Ahmedi’s story in a nationwide search for the most extraordinary true-life experience. Afghani-born Ahmedi’s 19 years are marked by...
A stirring collection of portraits of activists, writers, artists and (even!) politicians accompanied by stirring quotes. Mini-bios are available in the back. But where are the APAs among...
A careful examination of 48 second-generation South Asian Americans whose parents arrived from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal during 1965 and the mid-1980s. Through personal stories and sociological context, Purkayastha explores how this second...
Complete with rudimentary drawings of tongue positions for proper pronunciation, this guide has quite the collection of translated sentences: “These models do have their sexually flaming excited bodies.” I’ll stick with the “Please, give...
Gorgeous pages with ingredient lists so short that you might actually start believing that “simple” is not a misnomer!
Review: 
Breathtaking, heartbreaking account of the women trapped for generations in Pakistan’s pleasure quarter – once beloved, artistically gifted courtesans now reduced to devastating prostitution.
Review: 
All in the Name of Love in Xinran’s ‘Sky Burial’
Here’s the story: two lovers, marriage, and cruel separation by war shortly thereafter. The husband dies mysteriously, but the wife remains skeptical and embarks on...
Five fascinating Japanese women artists – Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, Takako Saito, Mieko Shiomi and Shigeko Kubato – left the conservative art world in their native Japan for New York. And if you can...
The title, Hua Song, means “in praise of the Chinese community.” Undoubtedly, the remarkable book is a beautifully rendered, bilingual record of Chinese communities throughout the world, past and present.
Review: 
From one of my favorite writers comes a highly readable memoir of a seed-collecting trek through eastern Nepal with three botanist friends. As always, Kincaid is blunt, honest, and highly observant, never overlooking her...
WOW. Here’s a white man’s exploration of race in America and his humble, blunt, sometimes even unknowingly racist attempts to be anti-racist even as he is part of the privileged majority.
Review: <a...
America – home of the best minds in the world? As Florida challenges, take a hard look at the 21st-century United States: That position of leadership is anything...