Chinese American Archives - Page 5 of 30

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...

Diversifying the Audiobook Industry: Four Asian American Narrators Take the Mic [in Library Journal]

11 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese American, Indian American, Korean American, Lists, Repost, South Asian American, Young Adult Readers

The publishing industry has been hard hit by COVID-19: festival and conference cancelations, library and bookstore shutterings, disappearing book tours, publishers’ office closings, production delays – especially with international printers – and, alas, probably more obstacles to come. But digital audiobooks can be the ideal,...

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...

Glorious Boy by Aimee Liu [in Library Journal]

04 May, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, British, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Indian, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Liu’s eponymous “glorious boy” exists at the intersection of families, communities, countries, cultures – and, for a while, life and death. His spirited, adventurous parents – Shep, a British doctor obsessed with the healing power of indigenous plants, and the American Claire, a would-be...

Grandpa Grumps by Katrina Moore, illustrated by Xindi Yan [in Shelf Awareness]

20 Apr, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Despite Daisy's carefully prepared "Things to do with Yeh-yeh" list, her goal during the week of her grandfather's visit is something far more challenging: "I have to make him smile before he leaves!" In creating Daisy and her Grandpa Grumps, Katrina Moore (One Hug) explores multi-generational,...

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...

Braised Pork by An Yu [in Booklist]

25 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Chen Hang is facedown in the bathtub when his wife, Jia Jia, discovers his naked corpse. Married for four years, their intended “lifelong partnership” didn’t include love, at least not for each other. After vomiting her “insuppressible resentment and disgust,” Jia Jia finds a pencil...

How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang [in Booklist]

17 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Beijing-born, globally-trotted, San Francisco-domiciled C. Pam Zhang “is still looking for home,” her author bio shouts. That search for home – uncertain, elusive, just-out-of-reach – looms throughout Zhang’s mesmerizing debut novel in which a family of four (which should have been five) never quite arrives....

Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park + Author Interview [in Shelf Awareness]

16 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Author Interview/Profile, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean, Korean American, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Fan Fiction, 50 Years Later Almost two decades have passed since Linda Sue Park became the first Korean American – and only the second Asian American – to win the Newbery Medal, in 2002 for A Single Shard. She's since published dozens of titles (Gondra's Treasure; Forest of...

Last Boat Out of Shanghai by Helen Zia + Author Interview [in Bloom]

10 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Author Interview/Profile, Chinese, Chinese American, Nonfiction, Repost

“We have to learn from history and stop repeating its mistakes” As the child of two Chinese refugees, Helen Zia can personally speak to the effects of displacement, separation, adaptation, and reinvention. In her memorable career as activist/journalist/writer/Asian American icon, Zia turns inward for the first time in...

Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn [in Booklist]

06 Mar, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost

After successfully reporting on global hot spots, mostly in Asia, the Pulitzer Prized, bestselling power couple Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (Half the Sky, 2008) turn westward to Kristof’s hometown, Yamhill, Oregon, a rural community where a quarter of Kristof’s Number 6 school bus...

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...

Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok [in Booklist]

27 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, European, Fiction, Repost

Just before Grandma died in Amsterdam, Sylvie temporarily rejoined the Tan family to say goodbye. Grandma had been living with the Tans: Ma’s cousin Helena, husband Willem, their son Lukas – for decades. For her first nine years, Sylvie, too, had been the Tans’ responsibility,...

Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen [in Shelf Awareness]

22 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese, Taiwanese American, Young Adult Readers

"This novel is a romp," Abigail Hing Wen promises (and delivers!) about Loveboat, Taipei. The Loveboat, she explains in her opening note to readers, is the popular name for Chien Tan, a real-life Taiwanese summer language program aimed at diasporic teens, with a reputation for...

Little Gods by Meng Jin [in Booklist]

24 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW The story starts at the end – “Today Su Lan begins to die” – and finishes at the beginning – “her new American life.” In between, multiple fragments pieced together from various points of view present an immigrant teenager’s quest to understand who she...

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu [in Booklist]

28 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Although the cover claims Yu’s (Sorry Please Thank You, 2012) latest is “A Novel” – the description insistently written out in both Chinese and English lettering – his fiction, as always, defies easy labels. This hybrid conflates history, sociology, and ethnography with the timeless...

The Tenth Muse by Catherine Chung [in Booklist]

01 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Korean American, Repost

“I suppose I should warn you that I tell a story like a woman: looping into myself, interrupting,” announces Catherine Chung’s protagonist Katherine. “Things have never seemed straightforward to me; the path has never been clear.” As the child of a WWII veteran father and...

Beijing Payback by Daniel Nieh [in Booklist]

29 Oct, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW With a mere handful of solo credits, Ewan Chung is a relative newbie to audiobooks, but his remarkable versatility proves the ideal fit to showcase Daniel Nieh’s outstanding thriller. The DC-born Chung is a talented polyglot, fluent in Mandarin (he translated the DVD audio...

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen [in Booklist]

18 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Chinese American, Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Repost

By 2142, “generations of interracial partnerships from the twenty-first century onward [have] rendered [names] meaningless” as markers of ethnicity. Time-traveling Agent Kin is named after quinoa; his fellow agent Markus Fernandez is a pale Brit/northern Californian. Author Mike Chen is Chinese American and channels Idris Elba...

Last of Her Name: A Novella & Stories by Mimi Lok [in Booklist]

12 Sep, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Hong Kongese, Repost, Short Stories

As co-founding (with Dave Eggers) executive director of the human rights and oral history organization, Voice of Witness, Mimi Lok channels her intimate observation of human relationships into an astute first story collection. The titular story features a dual narrative of extreme circumstances as experienced...

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