Repost Archives - Page 7 of 148

A Career in Books: A Novel about Friends, Money, and the Occasional Duck Bun by Kate Gavino [in Booklist]

12 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Nina, Silvia, and Shirin’s “now-mythical friendship origin story” began at NYU in their freshman writing workshop. As the only Asian Americans, they initially avoided each other, until a class trip to the New York Public Library led to a coincidental bathroom break that led to...

Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min [in Shelf Awareness]

11 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Fiction, Hapa/Mixed-race, Japanese American, Korean American, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Lio Min's soulful debut novel, Beating Heart Baby, highlights music, art, and the love of family – by birth, yes, but more significantly by circumstance and choice. Their emotive narrative spotlights Filipino American artist Santi and Korean Japanese American musician Suwa, playing out a tumultuous relationship...

Only the Cat Knows by Ruyan Meng [in Shelf Awareness]

10 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Through the first half of her spare, intricate novella Only the Cat Knows – recipient of the 2020 Red Hen Press Novella Award – Ruyan Meng brilliantly builds a mounting sense of claustrophobia. A factory worker labors hard every day but is unable to...

Mika in Real Life by Emiko Jean [in Shelf Awareness]

09 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese American, Repost

Author Emiko Jean transfers the effusive charm of her YA novels (Tokyo Ever After; Tokyo Dreaming) into her first adult fiction, Mika in Real Life. At age 35, Japanese American Mika is once again jobless. Her career's been inarguably erratic, serially fired from a donut shop, nannying, writing ...

Dead-End Memories by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Asa Yoneda [in Booklist]

08 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW Once upon a time, Banana Yoshimoto (born 1964) debuted as one of Japan’s youngest literary phenoms. In the decades since, she continues to produce brilliantly relevant fiction, notable for an open, accessible simplicity that belies revelatory observations about life, love, happiness, and more. Her latest...

Joseph Smith and the Mormons by Noah Van Sciver [in Booklist]

07 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Biography, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Nonethnic-specific, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Award-winning Noah Van Sciver shares in his author’s note he was born into an LDS family descended from a husband of Brigham Young’s daughter, Elizabeth. After his parents’ divorce when he was 12, he began to learn “about Joseph Smith and everything that [his]...

Notes from a Young Black Chef (Adapted for Young Adults) by Kwame Onwuachi with Joshua David Stein [in School Library Journal]

06 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Nigerian American, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Narrator Malik Rashad isn’t quite Kwame Onwuachi, who ideally narrated his original 2019 memoir – but here, that’s not necessarily a liability for younger audiences who might need a smidge more animation. Rashad affectingly channels Onwuachi, the self-described “black kid from the Bronx ...

Disability Visibility (Adapted for Young Adults): First-Person Stories for Today edited by Alice Wong [in School Library Journal]

05 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Chinese American, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

“This is the book I wish I had as a teenager,” disability rights activist Alice Wong reveals, choosing 17 stories for this adaptation from the 37 in her 2020 original. As editor, Wong again reads her introduction. While none could dispute that Wong is a...

The Missing Word by Concita De Gregorio, translated by Clarissa Botsford

04 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, European, Fiction, Italian, Repost, Translation

Widower, widow. Uxoricide. Orphan. Patricide. Infanticide. And yet missing from that harrowing vocabulary is a word for “parents who lose children. Who don’t murder them, but lose them.” Irina becomes that kind of grieving parent when her 6-year-old daughters vanish. She’s recently separated from husband Mathias,...

The Flamingo by Guojing [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Canadian Asian Pacific American, Children/Picture Books, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost

Few books deserve the "perfect" designation, but The Flamingo by Guojing arguably earns that appellation. The celebrated author of The Only Child and Stormy presents another remarkable, near-wordless story for young readers that gloriously commemorates bonds between humans and animals, enhanced here with the heartwarming relationship between a child and...

Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight by Riku Onda, translated by Alison Watts [in Shelf Awareness]

02 Aug, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Japanese, Repost, Translation

Following the notable success of The Aosawa Murders, prolific, award-winning Japanese author Riku Onda reunites with translator Alison Watts for Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight, another riveting, tightly plotted psychological thriller. "This, I guess you could say," the novel opens, "is the story of a photo." That...

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng [in Booklist]

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

*STARRED REVIEW Bird is 12. Home is a 10th-floor dorm apartment without a working elevator. His Harvard professor father has been demoted to clerical duties at the library. Since his mother, Margaret, left three years ago, Bird is called Noah, anything to disassociate from her since she’s...

The Lemon Tree (Young Readers’ Edition): An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan [in School Library Journal]

31 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Arab, Audio, Biography, Jewish, Middle Eastern, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Palestinian, Repost, Young Adult Readers

“I wanted to write a history book in disguise,” journalist and professor Sandy Tolan announces, “and to make it feel, throughout, like a good novel. Even though the story is true.” Tolan voiced his original; here Rami Medina makes his audiobook debut: his rich, youthful...

Fashionopolis (Young Readers Edition): The Secrets Behind the Clothes We Wear by Dana Thomas [in School Library Journal]

30 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Nonethnic-specific, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Paris-based journalist Dana Thomas adapts her 2019 erudite exposé for younger audiences, and also (again) narrates. For a writer careful enough to include phonetic guidelines – ”Maria Cornejo (pronounced “Cor-nay-ho”),” for example – her inconsistencies surprise: Ikeda is not “ai-kee-dah”; “Iris (pronounced “EEE-reece”)” is followed...

Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Young Readers Edition by Anton Treuer [in School Library Journal]

29 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Audio, Middle Grade Readers, Native American/First Nations/Indigenous Peoples, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW “Indians. We are so often imagined, but so infrequently well understood,” Anton Treuer’s opening sentence reads. As a Princeton-educated, Ojibwe professor with “one foot in the wigwam and one in the ivory tower,” Treuer “cannot speak for all Indians,” but he’s ready with “specific...

The Con Artists by Luke Healy [in Shelf Awareness]

28 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Irish, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW The prologue alone to Luke Healy's sharp, skilled The Con Artists is a wow-inducing example of show-don't-tell genius. "Oh, hello. I'm Luke Healy, the author of this book. No big deal," he modestly introduces himself. As he reads "a prepared statement" – the usual "entirely...

How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo [in Christian Science Monitor]

27 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Filipina/o American, Nonfiction, Repost

Bracing cultural criticism flows from the pen of Elaine Castillo Provocative and pointed literary criticism in How to Read Now: Essays challenges people to become better, smarter readers. Boundless erudition and eloquent exasperation define Elaine Castillo’s debut nonfiction, How to Read Now, an incandescent collection of essays...

Death Doesn’t Forget [Taipei Night Market, Book 4] by Ed Lin [in Shelf Awareness]

26 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Chinese American, Fiction, Repost, Taiwanese, Taiwanese American

Though Death Doesn't Forget is the fourth in the Taipei Night Market series, versatile novelist Ed Lin nimbly ensures each volume could easily stand alone. Of course, the recommended route is to read the titles in order – Ghost Month; Incensed; 99 Ways to Die – to further...

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi [in Shelf Awareness]

25 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, African, Black/African American, Fiction, Nigerian, Nigerian American, Repost, Short Stories

The nearly 15 years Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi spent writing and rewriting proves to be tenacity well invested, resulting in her audacious debut, Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories. The 10 chapters here work as standalone pieces (many were previously published in...

Mighty Justice (Young Readers’ Edition): The Untold Story of Civil Rights Trailblazer Dovey Johnson Roundtree by Dovey Johnson Roundtree and Katie McCabe, adapted by Jabari Asim [in School Library Journal]

24 Jul, by Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Audio, Black/African American, Memoir, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Until her death at 104 in 2018, Dovey Johnson Roundtree—“a Black woman born in the early twentieth century in the Jim Crow South” – shared a remarkable 24-year friendship with Katie McCabe, a self-described “white woman who came of age in 1950s Washington, DC.” Theirs...

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