Eleanor and Leena meet in 2004 in a Boston college-dorm elevator. Eleanor is a hapa Californian – her mother is white, her father Japanese American. Leena’s traditionally immigrant Indian American family is a few towns over in Lowell. That fall semester is spent intensely falling,...
Earlier this year, Bishakh Som debuted her dazzling graphic collection, Apsara Engine, the genesis of which is found here – inseparably entwined with Som’s own unique origin story. Som introduces herself in a narrative frame, bordering the memoir’s beginning and end: “I wanted to clue...
As spare as it might initially seem, Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay's wickedly entertaining novel, The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die, manages smoothly to illuminate gender inequity, cultural biases, socioeconomic disparity, and familial dysfunction through a three-generational ghost story. At 18, Somlata is wed to her 32-year-old husband, the "blissfully...
Once upon a time, the Olander quartet was just about perfect: white American Keith and Indian-born cosmopolitan Jaya fall madly in love in London and eventually settle in northern California to raise their two children. When eight-year-old Prem drowns in the family’s pool, 13-year-old Karina...
They’re baaaaaaak, with Soneela Nankani repeating her aural support for welcome consistency. Bestselling Sonali Dev continues her Austen-inspired series starring the Indian royalty-descended, Northern California-established Raje family. Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors (2019) introduced the extended clan, matching neurosurgeon Trisha with chef DJ. In #2, Dev’s...
What starts as seemingly light reading featuring New York family and friends headed to an Indian wedding morphs into a spectacularly entertaining examination of race, privilege, hybrid identity, family dysfunction, and maybe even a love story or five. Living in Mumbai and New York City,...
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 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,...
STARRED REVIEW Sixteen hours. Multiple layers of convoluted narrative. A vast cast in need of distinct distinguishing by age, gender, social standing, ethnicity, region, accent. Who you gonna call? Already a proven collaborator after The Golden-House (2017) and Shame (audio 2017), Adam returns as Rushdie’s voice-of-choice for his latest meandering...
*STARRED REVIEW A woman goes out for her regular evening walk on the beach, contemplating her relationship with her husband, until she sees a mermaid washed up on the shore. And here text and graphics suddenly diverge: the words reveal a recent affair, while the frames...
*STARRED REVIEW For the first time in her young life, Jivan has her own cellphone, which she bought with money earned by working as a shopgirl, having left high school after barely passing her tenth-form exams. After witnessing a gruesome train-station attack during her 15-minute walk...
In her provocative, intense debut novel, The Royal Abduls, Ramiza Shamoun Koya introduces the extended members of a fractured family four years after the horrors of 9/11. Each is attempting to deal with ongoing anti-Muslim challenges, from microaggressions to outright civil rights abuses. Despite a shared...
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...
What began as a family affair – Jeed Saddy made her aural debut with her sister-in-law’s memoir, First Comes Marriage – has turned into a promising bookish career: in just a few months, Saddy’s already onto her third narrating credit. Her versatile characterizations highlight the intertwined...
Author Devi S. Laskar knows what it’s like to have a police gun pointed at her. In 2010, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation raided her home when her professor husband was wrongly accused of misusing university funds. They confiscated her laptop, on which was stored...
“Bringing these diverse books to life” is why Priya Ayyar does what she does. She narrates the books she didn’t have when she was growing up – books that resonate with her experiences as a California-born Indian American. “To think that someone who’s Muslim American...
When Simi’s habitual klutziness leads (surprise!) to the unlikely pairing of her recently single cousin with the furniture store owner’s lawyer-to-be son, her mother and masi – mother’s sister – have irrefutable proof that Simi’s inherited the family talent: matchmaking. For three generations, the women...
Although audiobooks are just part of Priya Ayyar’s acting career, demand for her narrative talents shows no signs of slowing down. Recent highlights from Ayyar’s audio career are the focus of the “Now Hear This” column in the November 1 issue of Booklist, but Ayyar...
Vikas Adam has deservedly earned the title of Sandhya Menon’s male voice of choice, assuming hero status in all her titles thus far. He affably returns here as Ashish, the younger brother of Rishi from When Dimple Met Rishi (2017), and he’s about to get a Bollywood-worthy romance of...
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...
