Nonethnic-specific Archives - Page 8 of 49

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...

Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined by Stephen Fry [in Booklist]

28 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW British TV-film-stage-even-video-games-actor/comedian/novelist Stephen Fry is a consummate storyteller. Yes, he’s got multiple bestsellers on the page, including this latest: choosing from the godly Greek pantheon certainly provided divine inspiration, replete with the utmost in family dysfunction including bed-hopping (although, who needs beds?!), Sisyphean feats...

Garden by the Sea by Mercè Rodoreda, translated by Maruxa Relaño [in Booklist]

27 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Spanish, Translation

Set in 1920s Catalonia, the permeability of social classes – upstairs/downstairs style – gets played out in a Spanish seaside villa. The gardener, who has outlasted multiple “masters” over decades, narrates “six summers and one terrible winter” from when Barcelona almost-newlyweds take possession until the...

Thirteen Doorways, Wolves Behind Them All by Laura Ruby [in Booklist]

20 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Laura Ruby’s (Bone Gap, 2015) narrator – her name eventually revealed as Pearl – is dead. Pearl’s primary object of attention is not: Frankie, who’s 14 in 1941, is a “half orphan” relegated to a Chicago orphanage with her siblings by their living Italian immigrant father,...

Five More to Go: Kim Sagwa’s b, Book, and Me [in The Booklist Reader]

12 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Memoir, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

b, Book, and Me by Kim Sagwa and translated by Sunhee Jeong Although this book is set in a coastal suburb outside Seoul, the cycle of neglect by stressed or careless adults can and does happen anywhere. In such an all-too-familiarly indifferent environment, lauded Korean writer...

Phantoms by Christian Kiefer [in Booklist]

05 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Peter Berkrot is not a Japanese speaker – and somehow, he went into the recording studio without pronunciation guidance, an aural detail that unfortunately mars an otherwise stellar presentation of Christian Kiefer’s (Infinite Tides) stunning, slim third novel. With his folksy, inviting delivery, Berkrot magnetically lures...

Very Nice by Marcy Dermansky [in Booklist]

02 Feb, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Pakistani, Repost

Satire? Irony? A nine-hour extended joke? Certainly Marcy Dermansky’s latest is rife with almost every stereotype/cliché – the only one she thankfully avoids is the brown man as terrorist. That said, for those who survive the first eight hours and 40 minutes, the final poolside scene...

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick [in Booklist]

25 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

So you’re gonna find some conventional tropes here: mousy librarian, selfless sister/selfish sister, domineering father/submissive mother, free-spirited granny, mysterious guardian angel. But before your rolling eyeballs get stuck, two words on why you need to listen: Imogen Church! Perhaps best known for voicing clever thrillers...

When You Read This by Mary Adkins [in Booklist]

18 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker – both masterful epistolary novelists – couldn’t have imagined how today’s virtual communication would become an ideal medium to tell a story about ...

Two Dead by Van Jensen, illustrated by Nate Powell, color by Erin Tobey [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Black/African American, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Cycles of violence dominate the graphic novel Two Dead – whether at home or on so-called enemy territory. Traumatized by a World War II friendly-fire fatality, Sergeant Gideon Kemp returns stateside, eschews his law degree, and begins his police career in 1946 in his hometown...

Those Who Knew by Idra Novey [in Booklist]

05 Jan, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

“In the aging port city of an island nation near the start of the new millennium,” Idra Novey (Ways to Disappear) introduces her taut, haunting novel, giving it a foreboding sense of taking place anywhere close, anytime near. Student activist Maria P. has been dead...

Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett J. Krosoczka [in Booklist]

26 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Sure, the book is great. But the audio? It’s some sort of spectacular. In October 2018, bestselling Jarrett J. Krosoczka debuted his graphic memoir – about being raised by his grandparents when his single mother’s heroin addiction made her an unreliable parent; it was...

The River by Peter Heller [in Booklist]

22 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

“They were best friends at Dartmouth who had decided to take the summer and fall quarters off.” Jack and Wynn are like brothers, “but better, because [they] didn’t have to grow up fighting.” After working as wilderness instructors in the Adirondacks, they embark on a...

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout [in Booklist]

21 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW Kimberly Farr returns for a fourth propitious audiobook pairing with Elizabeth Strout, her second as the title character in this conclusion-of-sorts to the 2008 Pulitzer Prized novel Olive Kitteridge. Both books follow a similar format – both are comprised of 13 interlinked stories mostly...

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...

The Test by Sylvain Neuvel [in Booklist]

08 Dec, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, British, Fiction, Iranian, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW No doubt that Sylvain Neuvel’s (Themis Files series) standalone novella is a thought-provoking, heartbeat-raising experience. As convincing as the narrative is on the page, Neil Shah alchemizes Neuvel’s words into a revelatory performance, infusing contagious energy and creating impressive resonance. Sometime in the not-so-distant future,...

How Not to Die Alone by Richard Roper [in Booklist]

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

At 42, Andrew knows too much about death – personally and professionally. He’s lost his father, mother, sister; his bully brother-in-law is hardly family. He works in London’s Death Administration department, where he deals with what’s left of those who died alone, inspecting their homes,...

The Magic Hour by Ian Beck [in Shelf Awareness]

27 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in British, Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

As British artist and author Ian Beck explains in his afterword, he first visited London's Tate Gallery "as a callow art student." He discovered then his favorite painting in the collection: Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent. In a verdant Cotswolds garden, two...

Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman [in Booklist]

23 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

Perhaps because her single mother was an adamantly independent, relentlessly peripatetic news photographer, Nina Hill prefers to stay still. Mostly raised in L.A. by a wonderful nanny, by high school she was better read than all of her teachers. She finished a UCLA Art History...

Lottie & Walter by Anna Walker [in Shelf Awareness]

22 Nov, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

No one else but Lottie knows a shark is "hiding in the swimming pool." The teacher and other kids don't notice because the shark wants to eat only Lottie – which means every Saturday, Lottie spends her swimming class safely on deck. And then Walter...

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