Canadian Archives - Page 3 of 10

Five More to Go: Kim Hyun Sook’s Banned Book Club [in The Booklist Reader]

15 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Canadian, Cuban, Cuban American, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Jewish, Korean, Latin American, Lists, Memoir, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook with Ryan Estrada, illustrated by Ko Hyung-Ju Busan-based wife-and-husband team Kim and Estrada mine Kim’s young adult experiences to expose a chilling period of Korean history so antithetical to the globally addictive entertainment of K-dramas and K-pop currently synonymous...

Five More to Go: Corinne Manning’s We Had No Rules [in The Booklist Leader]

14 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Chinese American, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Indian American, Korean, Laotian American, Lists, Repost, South Asian American, Translation, Ukrainian, Ukrainian American

We Had No Rules by Corinne Manning Corinne Manning’s author statement couldn’t be clearer: “I had no idea how to write authentically until the day when I typed the sentence ‘Oh, f*ck it. I’m writing lesbian fiction.’” That declaration became “Gay Tale,” one of 11 stories...

The Library of Legends by Janie Chang [in Booklist]

06 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

They dubbed themselves the Minghua 123: 114 students and nine professors (plus 16 uncounted servants-laborers). In 1937, to escape the Japanese onslaught, they flee their university in Nanking to seek refuge a thousand miles westward. Saving their lives includes safeguarding 147 volumes of the Library...

Five More to Go: Cho Nam-Joo’s Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 [in The Booklist Reader]

17 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, Canadian, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo and translated by Jamie Chang Cho’s narrative is part bildungsroman and part Wikipedia entry. She opens with “August, 2015,” immediately divulging the fragile mental state of her titular Kim Jiyoung, who now as a wife and mother has...

A Map Is Only One Story: Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home edited by Nicole Chung and Mensah Demary [in Shelf Awareness]

26 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab American, Australian, Black/African American, Canadian, Caribbean American, Chinese American, European, Indian American, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Persian American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

The title originates in poet Jamila Osman's essay, "A Map of Lost Things": "A map is only one story," writes the Canadian-born daughter of Somali immigrants who now lives in Portland, Ore. "It is not the most important story. The most important story is the...

Reproduction by Ian Williams [in Booklist]

21 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Canadian, Caribbean American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

Everything here sounds off-kilter – on purpose. Discomfort pervades the reading, whether conversations are awkwardly not-quite-synched between speakers, or sentences spoken in an (unnamed) Caribbean island patois are made purposefully wooden and German words and phrases become virtually unintelligible. That jagged performance, however, seems integral...

Five More to Go: Paul Yoon’s Run Me to Earth [in The Booklist Reader]

29 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab, Audio, British, Cambodian, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, European, Fiction, Korean, Korean American, Lists, Repost, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian American, Sri Lankan American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon Traversing countries and continents during a half-century, Paul Yoon’s (The Mountain, 2017) second novel unfolds decades of unrelenting loss and meaningless brutality, balanced – somehow – by exquisite kindness and unbreakable bonds. In war-torn Laos, a country brutalized by...

Booklist Backlist: Fictional Worlds, Real Meals [in Booklist]

16 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Arab, Arab American, Black/African American, Canadian, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Iranian, Iranian American, Japanese, Korean, Latina/o/x, Lebanese, Lebanese American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

Yeah, sure: Proust and his madeleine-dipped-in-tea set the barometer for toothsome leitmotifs. I admit to the possibility that my academic indoctrination in his long, long musings made me quite the hungry reader. Or maybe I’m just always greedy for nourishment, with preferences in the belly...

Africaville by Jeffrey Colvin [in Shelf Awareness]

25 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Canadian, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

The town of Africville exists, designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1996. The small coastal community on the edge of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was home to black residents since the early 1800s, the majority with southern U.S. and Caribbean origins. Narrative magazine assistant editor Jeffrey...

The Matchmaker’s List by Sonya Lalli [in Booklist]

08 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Fiction, Indian American, Repost, South Asian American

At 29, Raina’s known true love, but also debilitating heartbreak when happily-ever-after didn’t happen. Still single, she reluctantly agrees to meet the men of her grandmother’s choosing. Not that her family is particularly marriageable: Nani seemed more servant than partner to Raina’s late grandfather, her...

Love from A to Z by S. K. Ali [in Booklist]

07 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab American, Audio, Canadian, Fiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

In an unusual narrative structure, S. K. Ali (Saints and Misfits, 2017) inserts herself directly into her latest #OwnVoices Muslim rom-com, making her aural debut. She opens by introducing two teens intrigued with “marvels” and “oddities” – whose alternating journal entries follow – then intervenes...

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood [in Booklist]

19 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Canadian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW In her September 16, 2019, cover article for Time magazine, Atwood recalls informing the showrunner for the Emmy-winning Hulu adaptation of her iconic The Handmaid’s Tale, “You absolutely cannot kill Aunt Lydia, or I will have your head on a plate.” Aunt Lydia, it...

Nosy White Woman by Martha Wilson [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

Martha Wilson, a U.S. expat who has lived in Canada for more than two decades, adroitly balances characters from both sides of the shared border (and beyond) throughout her exceptional debut of 16 short stories, Nosy White Woman. While first collections might often prove uneven,...

100 Days in Uranium City by Ariane Dénommé, translated by Helge Dascher and Rob Aspinal [in Booklist]

16 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Translation

Canadian artist Ariane Dénommé opens with, “Thanks Dad, for the stories about Uranium City,” a dedication suggesting some semblance of veracity about the many challenges endured by mining employees in a remote 1970s northern Canada town. The sense of entrapment over 100-day shifts in darkness...

Manuelito by Elisa Amado, illustrated by Abraham Urias [in Booklist]

08 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Guatemalan-born Canadian author Elisa Amado (What Are You Doing? 2011) “has known many people whose lives have been disrupted, if not destroyed, by the conflicts that have occurred [in Guatemala] since the 1950s,” her author’s bio reveals. That violence continues in the Northern Triangle of Central America...

Transgender Pride, Literally: 11 Titles by #OwnVoices Authors and More [in The Booklist Reader]

28 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, British, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Children/Picture Books, European, Fiction, Lists, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Happy final Friday of Pride Month. Wow . . . that went by quickly! I have 25 (no lie!) more books on, under, next to, and all around my desk that I will not be covering here, which is actually a good thing, because that’s proof that...

Beirut Hellfire Society by Rawi Hage [in Booklist]

24 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Lebanese, Lebanese American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW “Although the characters in this novel are fictitious,” the final sentence of Hage’s (Carnival, 2013) spectacular novel acknowledges, “this is a book of mourning for the many who witnessed senseless wars, and for those who perished in those wars.” For the Lebanon-born, Canadian-domiciled, International...

A Song for China by Ange Zhang [in Booklist]

18 Jun, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Biography, Canadian, Canadian Asian Pacific American, Children/Picture Books, Chinese, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Fifteen years ago, Toronto-based artist Ange Zhang debuted Red Land Yellow River (2004), a gorgeous, hauntingly rendered autobiography about coming-of-age during China’s Cultural Revolution, marked by incomprehensible, chaotic, threatening change. The beloved father he introduced then becomes the subject in this book, its title a...

Five More to Go: Margaret Atwood and Reneé Nault’s The Handmaid’s Tale [in The Booklist Reader]

16 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, European, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Japanese, Lists, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Reneé Nault In the decades since its 1985 publication, Margaret Atwood’s dystopic classic has spawned audio, film, radio, theater, opera, ballet incarnations, and, most recently, the wildly popular television series (which veers significantly from the original, ahem). Given the evergreen...

The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel by Margaret Atwood and Reneé Nault, illustrated by Reneé Nault [in Booklist]

15 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Given the evergreen veneration of Margaret Atwood’s dystopic classic that, since its 1985 publication, has spawned audio, film, radio, theater, opera, and ballet incarnations and, most recently, the wildly popular television series, this graphic novel was certainly inevitable. Canadian artist Reneé Nault is credited...

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