Origin/Ethnic Background Archives - Page 43 of 232

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson [in Booklist]

19 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Black/African American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW National Book Award-winner Jacqueline Woodson (Another Brooklyn) exquisitely examines the (dis)connections of three generations of a Brooklyn family that is tenuously held together by Melody, whose coming-of-age ceremony is just beginning in her grandparents’ brownstone. Through 21 spare, dazzling chapters, Woodson reveals the past...

King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender [in Shelf Awareness]

18 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Black/African American, Fiction, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

Kacen Callender, who identifies as queer, trans POC, wrote the Stonewall and Lambda winner Hurricane Child as Kheryn Callender; they debuted their name change in May 2019 with the announcement of the sale of their upcoming transgender YA novel Felix Ever After. Callender's second middle-grade title, King and the...

The Majesties by Tiffany Tsao [in Shelf Awareness]

17 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Australian, Fiction, Indonesian, Repost, Southeast Asian

Since comparisons to Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians seem unavoidable, here's what might be familiar: yes, crazy, rich, Asian characters populate Tiffany Tsao’s The Majesties. Differences, however, immediately overshadow superficial similarities, most obviously from the very first sentence: "When your sister murders three hundred people,...

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

16 Dec, by SIBookDragon 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...

Bone Talk by Candy Gourlay [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Dec, by SIBookDragon in British Asian, Fiction, Filipina/o, Middle Grade Readers, Repost, Southeast Asian

Growing up in the Philippines, Candy Gourlay (Tall Story) "wondered why all the books she'd ever loved didn't resemble her steamy, tropical home in Manila." As she explains in her author bio, it took years as a journalist and author for Gourlay, who now lives...

Almost American Girl by Robin Ha [in Booklist]

12 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Korean American, Memoir, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW “The End of the World as I Know It” – Robin Ha’s first chapter heading – happened when she was 14. As a student in 1995 in Seoul, Korea, Ha was mostly a typical teenager, enjoying close friendships, studying hard, and obsessed with reading...

Track Changes by Sayed Kashua, translated by Mitch Ginsburg [in Shelf Awareness]

11 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Arab, Fiction, Israeli, Palestinian, Repost, Translation

In the "track changes" function of a word processing program, the "all markup" option preserves all deletions, additions, rewrites for the life of the document – although the last editor ultimately chooses what to accept and reject in the final version. Palestinian Israeli Sayed Kashua,...

Amnesty by Aravind Adiga [in Booklist]

10 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Australian, Fiction, Indian, Repost, South Asian

In his latest novel, following Selection Day (2017), Booker Prize-winner Aravind Adiga confronts a universal conundrum: at what price are we willing to do the right thing? Over not quite 11 working hours, Dhananjaya Rajaratnam – who’s been living in Sydney for the past four years...

How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee [in Booklist]

09 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Repost, Singaporean

*STARRED REVIEW Singaporean born, Oxford-educated, Amsterdam-domiciled Jing-Jing Lee opens her expansive, extraordinary debut novel with a reclamatory dedication: “For all the grandmas (halmonies, lolas and amas) who told their stories, so that I could tell this one.” Lee’s rescue of stories belonging to older women is...

The Test by Sylvain Neuvel [in Booklist]

08 Dec, by SIBookDragon 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,...

Banned Book Club by Hyun Sook Kim with Ryan Estrada, illustrated by Hyung-Ju Ko [in Booklist]

06 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Korean, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Busan-based wife-and-husband team Hyun Sook Kim and Ryan Estrada mine Kim’s young adult experiences to expose a chilling period of recent Korean history so antithetical to the globally addictive entertainment of K-dramas and K-pop currently synonymous with South Korea. In 1983, Hyun Sook is a...

Run Me to Earth by Paul Yoon [in Booklist]

05 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean American, Laotian, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW The story begins and ends with Alisak, one of three inseparable Laotian orphans in 1969, who, in the final pages, will have become an almost-content Spanish shopowner on his way to a birthday celebration in 2018. Traversing countries and continents during a half-century, Paul...

The Teacher by Michal Ben-Naftali, translated by Daniella Zamir [in Booklist]

04 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Biography, European, Fiction, Israeli, Jewish, Repost, Translation

“Elsa Weiss left no testimony behind” when she jumped to her death some 30 years ago. She remains a recorded name, one of the 1,684 Jews on the infamous Kastner train that left Budapest, Hungary, in June 1944; she was among the 1,670 passengers to...

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar [in Booklist]

03 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Australian, Australian Asian, Fiction, Iranian, Persian, Repost, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Although the page facing the title of Azar’s first novel to be translated into English clearly states, “Translated from the Farsi,” the linguistic enabler remains anonymous; the publisher’s official line is, “the translator of this book has asked not to be named out of...

Best World Literature 2019 [in Library Journal]

02 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Chinese, European, Fiction, French, Japanese, Korean, Lists, Repost, South American, Syrian, Translation

For the second year, I got to read along with two fabulously erudite co-horts – my Library Journal editor Barbara Hoffert and fellow LJ reviewer Lawrence Olszewski – to compile this 10-title list of remarkable, unforgettable, best-of translated world literature. We all read voraciously throughout the year,...

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

01 Dec, by SIBookDragon 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,...

Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine [in Booklist]

30 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Repost, Short Stories

*STARRED REVIEW A half-dozen Latinx readers voice Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s superb 11-story debut collection, which features mostly Colorado-domiciled Latinx/Indigenous characters hoping, demanding to be seen and acknowledged by a society in which women are routinely dismissed, threatened, and destroyed. Aural aficionados will especially thrill at the “read...

The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys [in Booklist]

29 Nov, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, European, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

L.A.-born, Madrid-raised Maite Jáuregui makes her audiobook debut with one of the year’s most anticipated/lauded/likely to be awarded titles. Jáuregui dominates a sizable cast (Joshua Kane, Robert Petkoff, Oliver Wyman, Richard Ferrone, Neil Hellegers, Liza Kaplan), while her co-stars take turns momentarily interrupting chapters with...

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu [in Booklist]

28 Nov, by SIBookDragon 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 Magic Hour by Ian Beck [in Shelf Awareness]

27 Nov, by SIBookDragon 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...

BookDragon Origin/Ethnic Background